Ranunculus Bulbosus Scmiplenus. 



257 



A. 



B. 



1197 



11088 



9.3 



It is evident that the number of petals in the various 

 groups is practically the same.-^ 



Even the seeds of pleiopetalous flov^ers are by no 

 means better. In gathering the harvest of 1891 I col- 

 lected the seed on each plant in a separate bag with ref- 

 erence to the number of petals of the flowers. The flow- 

 ers were labelled for this purpose at the time of flowering. 

 In the culture of 1892, therefore, the plants were arranged 

 in groups, first according to their seed-parents, and sec- 

 ondly according to the petal-number of the flowers from 

 which the seed had been gathered. I then grouped all of 

 the figures by the latter character and obtained the fol- 

 lowing result : 



NUMBER OF PETALS IN THE 



FLOWERS WHICH 



FURNISHED THE SEED 



C5-7 

 C 8 

 C 9 



C 10-11 

 C 12-14 



' In the weakening sj'^stem of 1)ranching on the other hand the 

 contrary seems to be the rule; so for instance in my cultures of Sa/^o- 

 naria officinalis with 5-10 petals, in Chrysantlicmum scgctnm ( § 18) etc. 



'The mean is slightly lower here than in the previous table be- 

 cause that only refers to countings made in September. (See later.) 



