MERISTIC PHENOMENA 57 



sider whether the fineness or coarseness of the mixture visible 

 in the flowers or leaves may not give an indication of the degree 

 to which the factors are subdivided among the germ-cells. We 

 know very little about the genetic properties of striped varieties. 

 In both Antirrhinum and Mirabilis it has been found that the 

 striped may occasionally and irregularly throw self-coloured 

 plants, and therefore the striping cannot be regarded simply as 

 a recessive character. On the other hand in Primula Sinensis 

 there are well-known flaked varieties which ordinarily at least 

 breed true. Whether these ever throw selfs I do not know, 

 but if they do it must be quite exceptionally. The power of 

 these flaked plants to breed true is, I suspect, connected with 

 the fact that in their flowers the coloured and white parts are 

 intimately mixed, this intimate mixture thus being an indication 

 of a similarly intimate mixture in the germ-cells. It would be 

 important to ascertain whether self-fertilised seed from the oc- 

 casional flowers in which the colour has run together to form a 

 large patch gives more self-coloured plants than the intimately 

 flaked flowers do. 



The next fact may eventually prove of great importance. 

 We have seen that in bud-sports the differentiation is of the same 

 nature as that between pure types, and also that in the sporting 

 plant this differentiation is distributed without any reference 

 to the plant's axis, or any other consideration of symmetry. 

 Now among the germ-cells of a Mendelian hybrid exactly such 

 characters are being distributed allelomorphically, and there 

 again we have strong evidence for believing that the distribution 

 obeys no pattern. For example, we can in the case of seeds still 

 in situ perceive how the characters were distributed among the 

 germ-cells, and there is certainly no obvious pattern connecting 

 them, nor can we suppose that there is an actual pattern obscured. 



Of this one illustration is especially curious. Individual 

 plants of the same species are, as regards the decussations of 

 their leaves and in other respects, either rights or lefts. The fact 

 is not emphasized in modern botany and is in some danger of 

 being forgotten. When, as in the flowers of the Spring Gladioli, 

 Exacum, St. Paulia, or the fruits of Loasa, rights and lefts occur 



