40 ESTABLISHMENT OF VARIETIES IN COLEUS 



4. The development of rather large conspicuous areas of yellow in 

 one or more leaves of a plant otherwise pure green occurred 9 times. 

 In one case three leaves of the same branch showed yellow areas that 

 arose in this apparently spontaneous manner (see text-fig. 1). 



Summary. — There were 27 cases of bud variation giving increase of 

 yellow and involving directlj^ 788 plants. There was opportunity 

 for increase of yellow to occur in all plants grown, except those of the 

 pattern yellow-red blotched, and even in these, 10 of the 11 were grown 

 as chimeras with at least half of the plant green. In computing a 

 final ratio for the frequency of bud variations giving increase of yellow, 

 we may use all but 6 of the plants grown. The ratio of frequency on 

 this basis is 1 to 6,130. 



II. Decrease of Yellow and Increase of Green. 



1 . Pattern green-yellow spotted-red blotched was produced from green- 

 yellow-red blotched and yelloiv-green-red blotched in 9 instances on a total 

 of 378 plants. In 4 other cases the change to yellow spotted affected 

 single branches, and although marked for a time after the first appear- 

 ance, later fluctuated to the parent type green-yellow-red spotted, for 

 which the plants became quite uniform. 



2. Pattern green-red blotched with complete loss of yellow occurred on 

 plants with green-yellow-red blotched, with green-yellow spotted-red blotched 

 (entire and laciniate), and with yellow-green-red blotched patterns in 

 37 instances on a total of 644 plants. The same change gave pattern 

 green-solid red 4 times on 54 plants of pattern green-yellow-solid red. 



Summary. — Bud variations producing increase of green occurred 50 

 times. The total plants grown with more or less j^ellow were 740. 

 The ratio of frequency for loss of green by bud variation was 1 to 2,960. 



III. Reversal of the Relative Positions of Green and Yellow. 



1 . This reversal has only occurred in patterns with the yellow at the 

 border of the leaf, giving yellow-green-red blotched (fig. 6) from green- 

 yellow-red blotched (fig. 2) and yellow-green-solid red (fig. 11) from green- 

 yellow-solid red (fig. 8) in a total of 8 instances on 391 plants. It is also 

 possible for a reversal to occur in any other patterns having a distinct 

 border of green or yellow. The total of such plants is 450, which gives 

 1 to 11,250 as the ratio of frequency for this change. 



B. CHANGES INVOLVING THE EPIDERMAL RED. 

 I. Increase of Epidermal Red. 



Eight instances of bud variations giving solid red occurred in red 

 blotched patterns involving directly a total of 625 plants. None of 

 the 41 plants of the pattern yellow-green-red blotched gave this variation. 

 Increase of red was possible in all except the solid-red patterns (62 

 plants in all). The ratio for this change was 1 to 19,250. 



