324 Ever-sporting Varieties 



and of Clarkia pulchella. Both of them are 

 ever-sporting varieties. The experiments were 

 conducted during five generations with the vi- 

 olet, and during four with the striped Clarkia, 

 including the progeny of the striped and of the 

 monochromatic red offspring of a primitive 

 striped plant. I need not give the figures here 

 for the numerical relations between the differ- 

 ent types of each group, and shall limit myself 

 to the statement that they behaved in exactly 

 the same manner as the snapdragon. 



It is worth while to dwell a moment on the 

 capacity of the individuals with red flowers to 

 reproduce the striped type among their off- 

 spring. For it is manifest that this latter qual- 

 ity must have lain dormant in them during their 

 whole life. Darwin has already pointed out 

 that when a character of a grandparent, which 

 is wanting in the progeny, reappears in the sec- 

 ond generation, this quality must always be 

 assumed to have been present though latent in 

 the intermediate generation. To the many in- 

 stances given by him of such alternative inher- 

 itance, the monochromatic reversionists of the 

 striped varieties are to be added as a new type. 

 It is moreover, a very suggestive type, since the 

 latency is manifestly of quite another character 

 than for instance in the case of Mendelian hy- 

 brids, and probably more allied to those in- 



