i9i 2] SHULL— LYCHNIS AND PAP AVER 131 



A single white-flowered plant with yellow stamens was crossed 

 in 1909 with three red-flowered plants (yielding families 10275, 

 10281, 10282) and with two plants having dull striations on the 

 petals (families 10280, 10283), an< i the offspring of these five matings 

 were generally white or whitish-flowered. Of 559 plants in these 

 families only 25 were neither pure white nor white with traces of 

 reddish color, and of these 25, all that had a full red (i.e., not 

 striated) parent were lighter in color than that parent. These 

 fully pigmented offspring may simply represent minus-fluctuations 

 in the action of the inhibitor derived from the white-flowered 

 parent. If this is the correct interpretation of these few plants 

 with colored flowers, it should be possible to secure from them 

 progenies displaying the presence of the inhibitor though it be 

 invisible in both parents. While I have as yet grown no offspring 

 from the colored plants of these families, I have two other families 

 (10270, 10308) in which the same whitish offspring have appeared, 

 though both parents in each case were fully pigmented. Family 

 10270 was produced by mating two dark-red parents which were 

 sibs in a family consisting of red, red-orange, pink (light violet- 

 red), and white. The progeny of these two dark-red plants con- 

 sisted of 68 white or whitish and 70 pigmented, the latter often 

 striated and generally much less intensely pigmented than either 

 parent. Only two of the offspring showed as deep shade as that 

 of their parents. The parents of family 10308 were also red- 

 flowered sibs in a family containing red, red-orange, pink, and white. 

 They were considerably lighter red than the parents of 10270, but 

 were fully and evenly pigmented. Their offspring consisted of 80 

 white- and whitish-flowered plants and 13 with pigmented flowers, 

 none of which were as deeply pigmented as either parent, and 

 several of which showed the peculiar stria tion which seems to be 

 one of the manifestations of the inhibitor believed to be operating 

 in these crosses. Similar results were obtained in seven families 

 (10266, 10273, 10274, 10297, 10303, 10305, 10311) produced from 

 mating together two plants w r ith striated petals, or a striated with 

 a plain red, and only in one family, containing three individuals 

 (10268), did the "dominant white" fail to manifest itself in pro- 

 genies from matings of this character. In the latter family a 



