Monstrosities 421 



same way heirs and atavists. Every plant, if 

 fertilized with its own pollen, gives rise to 

 both types. The parent itself may be tricotyl- 

 ous or dicotylous, or show any amount of 

 multiplication and cleavage in its seed-leaves, 

 but it always gives the entire range among its 

 progeny of the variation. One may even select 

 the atavists, pollinate them purely and repeat 

 this in a succeeding generation without any 

 chance of changing the result. On an average 

 the atavists may give lower hereditary figures, 

 but the difference will be only slight. 



Such tricotylous double races offer highly 

 interesting material for inquiries into questions 

 of heredity, as they have such a wide range of 

 variability. There is little danger in asserting 

 that they go upwards to nearly 100^, and down- 

 wards to Ofo^ diverging symmetrically on both 

 sides of their average (50-55;'^). These limits 

 they obviously cannot transgress, and are not 

 even able to reach them. Samples of seed con- 

 sisting only of tricotyls are very rare, and when 

 they are met with the presumption is that they 

 are too few to betray the rare aberrants they 

 might otherwise contain. Experimental evi- 

 dence can only be reached by the culture of a 

 succeeding generation, and this always discloses 

 the hidden qualities, showing that the double 



