PLANT BREEDING 265 



recessive and the white dominant. That the color said to be 

 recessive is merely latent and not lost is shown when the next 

 generation of plants is produced. Here the recessive color 

 appears again in approximately one quarter of the specimens ; 

 and if these recessive plants are now bred together for gener- 

 ations, they will bring no plants of the other color. Quite a 

 different state of affairs exists in the behavior of the remain- 

 ing three quarters of the specimens. If the recessive color 

 is white, then these 

 latter will be red, but 

 only about one third 

 of them, that is, one 

 quarter of the whole 

 number of plants, 

 will be capable of 

 producing only red 

 flowers in the next 

 generation, and so on 

 indefinitely. The re- 

 maining 50 per cent 

 of the original num- 

 ber will produce as 



before, approximately 



, FIG. 193. Diagram to illustrate Mendel's law 

 one quarter pure red, 



one quarter pure white, and one half mixed, and this con- 

 dition will continue through many successive generations. In 

 explanation of this it is assumed that in the original white- 

 flowered species all the gametes, or sexual cells, of the plant 

 had the tendency to produce other white-flowered forms, and 

 the equivalent cells in the red-flowered plants had a tendency 

 to produce red flowers. When they are bred together, there- 

 fore, the resulting plants are bound to have a mixture of red 

 and white gametes, one of which becomes dominant in this 

 second generation. In the next generation, however, the male 



