VOLUME LII NUMBER 5 
FHE 
ISO LANICAL... GAZETTE 
NOVEMBER 1911 
REVERSIBLE SEX-MUTANTS IN LYCHNIS DIOICA' 
GEORGE HARRISON SHULL 
(WITH FIFTEEN FIGURES) 
Six hermaphrodite specimens of Lychnis dioica L. were found in 
cultures of 1908, and eight in r909. With respect to their heredi- 
tary behavior in the first generation, when used as pollen parents, 
these hermaphrodites proved to be of two kinds, the individuals 
A and B being capable of determining the hermaphrodite character 
in their male offspring, while individuals C and D behaved exactly 
like normal males, giving progenies @nsisting of females and nor- 
mal males. 
The conclusion was reached (SHULL 26) that the hermaphrodites 
are modified males, because (1) in all families in which the first 
mentioned type of hermaphrodite was used as the pollen parent 
the offspring consisted of females and hermaphrodites in the same — 
ratio as would have been expected of females and males if a normal 
male had been used as the pollen parent, and because (2) the second 
type of hermaphrodite when used as a pollen parent gave the same 
result that a normal male would have given. 
Accepting tentatively the Mendelian explanation of sex first 
clearly enunciated by Correns (6), which recogirizes the one sex 
as homozygous and the other sex as heterozygous with respect to a 
Sex-producing gene, it was decided that these hermaphrodites (and 
therefore also males) must be heterozygous, because (1) the males 
are capable of being modified in such manner as to display function- 
: * Read at the meeting of the Botanical Society of America, Minneapolis, Decem- 
er, IQIo 
329 
