20 ESTABLISHMENT OF VARIETIES IN COLEUS 



Color pattern green-solid red upper center (fig. 15): A type that 

 differs from type green-yellow-solid red upper center in having no yellow 

 and hence is apparently bicolored on the upper surface. The center 

 of the leaf is violet carmine and the marginal zone is pure green. 



Color pattern yellow-solid red: This type has almost uniform nopal 

 red color on both surfaces. It differs from type green-yellow-solid red 

 in not possessing a dark red center and from type yellow-red blotched 

 in having the epidermis completely red. In both patterns the green 

 underlying a solid red epidermis is almost entirely absent. 



Laciniate leaf shape (fig. 7) : In marked contrast to the type of entire 

 leaf illustrated in the figures showing the various color patterns is 

 the deeply and irregularly cut and lobed types of leaf shape, the appear- 

 ance and behavior of which will be specially discussed later. 



All of these color patterns arose as sudden spontaneous bud-varia- 

 tions, with the single exception of the type green-solid red upper center, 

 which is a pattern into which plants with the green-yellow-solid red 

 upper center pattern fluctuated. Throughout this paper, as above 

 noted, the term " bud variation" is, in all cases not otherwise qualified, 

 applied only to a marked change that appeared suddenly and com- 

 pletely for a part of a plant, and which was fully in evidence in the 

 leaves involved when they first unrolled. Gradual fluctuations also 

 gave in numerous cases types green-yellow spotted-red blotched, green- 

 yellow spotted, and green-red blotched. That is, these types appeared 

 both by sudden and by gradual variations. 



CONSTANCY OF THE VARIOUS PATTERNS. 



To test the constancy of the types, the original as well as those 

 derived from it by bud variations, successive generations of plants 

 were grown from pedigreed cuttings. This tested the vegetative con- 

 stancy of the pattern itself and enables one to make comparisons when 

 the same pattern was derived from different lines. 



The series of plants considered under any type pattern are in large 

 measure a selected stock. When cuttings were made for the perpetua- 

 tion of the pattern in a new generation, they were made from the plants 

 most typical and constant for the pattern concerned. When a bud 

 variation appeared, if the conditions were favorable, the parts posses- 

 sing it were allowed to develop until there were several branches from 

 which cuttings could be taken simultaneously. In such cases the 

 selection of branches for the new type was a simple matter, as it 

 depended on the taking of branches sharply distinct from the main 

 part of the plant, which in most cases were as different as is shown in 

 figures 21 and 24. When further cuttings were made for a new genera- 

 tion to perpetuate the type they were made from plants most uniform 

 and constant (determined from the records) for the pattern in question. 



