No. 551] 



THE MENDELIAN NOTATION 



bits. In these investigations every test possible for the 

 theory has been satisfied. No criticism could be made ex- 

 cept that certain of the characters used varied consider- 

 ably in the mother varieties and therefore were pre- 

 sumably not homozygous for all character factors. This 

 criticism is apparently answered by a recent investiga- 

 tion of the writer's, as yet unpublished, where two 

 species, Nicotiana forgetiana and Nicotiana alata grandi- 

 flora were crossed. As seen by the table, the corolla 

 length is very slightly variable in either species, nor is 

 it affected to any extent by environment, yet each species 

 was absolutely reproduced by recombination in the F 2 

 generation. 



TABLE I 



Frequency Distributions for Length of Corolla in a Cross between 

 Nicotiana forgetiana (314) and N. alata grandiflora (321). 



Designation ClMsCeD teiB in Millim eters 



20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 GO 65 70 75 ^ j» 



5 27 i 79 136 1 



C 321) P 1= 



I do not believe that biologists have sufficient facts as 

 yet to warrant any concrete meaning being given to their 

 notation as regards germ-cell structure, but I do main- 

 tain that the Mendelian notation satisfies the facts of 

 size inheritance as well as it satisfies the facts of quali- 

 tative inheritance. As a description, it goes the whole 

 way. If qualitative inheritance is Mendelian, quantita- 

 tive inheritance is Mendelian ; if quantitative inheritance 

 is not thus described, qualitative inheritance is described 

 not a whit better. 



All writers do not agree with this statement; never- 

 theless, speaking for myself only, I believe it to be be- 

 yond question. Castle (Amer. Nat., 46: p. 361) says: 



It is quite possible that we are stretching: Mendelism too far in 



