The Significance of the Atarists. 515 



generations which produced a greater or les.^ number of 

 fasciations. The seeds of the finest fasciations of 1890, 

 however, produced nothing but normal plants in 1891 

 which did not exhibit the anomaly, even on a single 

 lateral branch. They were weak plants and it lucjked 

 as if the anomaly were lost once and for all; Imt seeds 

 of these plants produced in the following year, 1892, 

 fourteen plants, of which seven were fasciated. Six 

 of them had 1 — 1 — 2 — 2 — 3 — 3 broadened stems, and 

 one plant had as much as four large fasciations. More- 

 over the lateral branches were so much affected by the 

 anomaly that I found about one-third of them to be 

 modified in this way. Since that time the anomaly has 

 remained constant in this strain. In the third generation 

 of my race of Aniarantus speciosus (1891) the fascia- 

 tions were also absent, but returned in the fourth and 

 fifth generations in 30 and 50% of the indixiduals. In 

 HeUanthiis annmis they were also absent from the third 

 generation (1889), whilst the fourth contained about 

 20% of fasciated individuals, and the anomaly has since 

 remamed constant. In the maize I observed fasciated 

 ears in 2 cultivated race in the years 1888, 1889, 1892 

 and 1893, but not in the generation of 1891, between 

 these. From the seed of a very broad stem of Picvis 

 hieracioidcs (1887) I raised three generations under 

 unfavorable conditions, and they did not produce a trace 

 of the anomaly on many hundreds of branches and stems. 

 Tt was not until the fourth generation that the anomaly 

 reappeared, although only t(^ a slight extent. Besides 

 this strain I have cultivated a race of biennial individuals, 

 and these have presented fine Instances of fasciations in 

 greater or less abundance in e\'ery generation.-^ 



^ Revue generalc dr hotan'ujnc. 1899, Vol. XT. p. T36. 



