332 THE GERM-PLASM 



condition between the peloric and normal state, and thirty-seven 

 were perfectly peloric/ * If now, the character of asymmetry 

 possessed a ' prepotent force of transmission,' we should expect 

 it to become more apparent when the flowers of both parents 

 were asymmetrical, than when this was the case as regards one 

 parent only. In the chapter of the same book which treats of 

 pangenesis, Darwin has attempted to give a special explanation 

 of the fact ' that a character gains strength by the intermission 

 of a generation' in which this character is not present. 



My own explanation of the above-mentioned facts follows 

 almost directly from what has already been said. The pro- 

 duction of so many individuals of the ordinary kind by the 

 crossing of the common snapdragon with the peloric form, and 

 the fact that a large number of 'perfectly peloric' offspring, 

 as well as of the common form, were produced when those 

 obtained by the first cross were fertilised with their own pollen, 

 is due simply to the reducing division of the germ-mother-cells 

 occurring in different ways, so that sometimes only ' ordinary ' 

 and sometimes only 'peloric' determinants reach the germ- 

 cell, and sometimes, again, a combination of both, in which 

 either the 'peloric' or the 'ordinary' determinants preponderate. 

 The daughter-plant will produce flowers which are either quite of 

 the common form or more or less peloric, according to whether 

 the determinants which are brought together by the two germ- 

 cells in the process of fertilisation are chiefly ' peloric ' or chiefly 

 of the 'ordinary' kind. It is evident, however, that most of the 

 parents of this generation, which possessed flowers of the ordi- 

 nary form, must have contained ' peloric ' as well as ' ordinary ' 

 determinants in their germ-plasm before the reducing division, 

 for they were all derived from a peloric father or mother. The 

 predominance of the ordinary form in the next generation may 

 be explained as being due to the peloric grandparents possess- 

 ing only a slight majority of 'peloric' determinants in their 

 germ-plasm, in addition to a considerable number of 'ordinary ' 

 determinants. The whole of the germ-plasm of the germ-cells 

 from which the parent generation arose must have contained 

 very many more 'ordinary' than 'peloric' determinants. 



* Loc. cit.. Vol. II., p. 46. 



