Stability and Real Atavism 177 



when very young, in the first two or three, or 

 sometimes in eight or ten primary leaves. 

 These leaves are small because of the weakness 

 of the young plant and therefore often more or 

 less reduced in structure. But they are usually 

 strictly bipinnate and thereby give testimony 

 as to their descent from species which bear such 

 leaves throughout their life. 



Other similar cases could be given, but these 

 will suffice. They once more show how neces- 

 sary is it to separate the different cases, thrown 

 together until now, under this general name of 

 atavism. It would be far better to give them 

 all special names, and as long as these are not 

 available we must be cautious not to be mis- 

 guided by the name, and especially not to con- 

 fuse different phenomena with one another, be- 

 cause at the present time they bear the same 

 names. 



Taking into consideration the relatively nu- 

 merous restrictions, resulting from this discus- 

 sion we will now make a hasty survey of some 

 of the more notable and generally acknowledged 

 cases of atavism by bud-propagation. But it 

 should be repeated once more that most of the 

 highly cultivated plants, grown as vegetables or 

 for their fruit or flowers, have so many crosses 

 in their ancestry, that it seems better to exclude 

 them from all considerations, in which purity of 



