|Intttcrsitij of Chicago 



Department of Botany The Botanical Gazette 



May 23, 1901. 



My dear Deane : - 



Your note of May 21 is at hand. So far as I « aware there 

 is no possible way of predicting , except by a knowledge of its ances- 

 tors, what the color of any flower is likely to be. Certainly no one 

 has discovered anything in seed or spore which enables this to be 

 predicted. With a knowledge of the ancestors we know approximately 

 what to expect^but in *ny given case there are variations which are 

 entirely inexplicable. However, if Dr. Wesselhoeft proposes to base any 

 inferences regarding animals upon the behavior of Vulbs and seeds, you 

 would better warn him that he is comparing structures which are not 

 in the least comparable. 1'Teither seed nor spore represent the sex 

 cells and should he compare them to egg and sperm in animals he would 

 simply be making a comparison which has often been made before, but 

 which at the present day is utterly unjustifiable. I can't conceive 

 how an allegation regarding the development of color in flowers could 

 have much bearing upon the appearance of color in animals! 



The color of a flower , by the way, is one of the last 

 things to appear. It ordinarily does not develop until the flower 

 is almost ready to expand from the bud. When we have discovered the 

 physical b^.sis of heredity for structure, we shall be nearer to a 

 knowledge of why color patterns reappear in the progeny. 



T am glad to hear from you and to know that you are well and 

 busy. We have all been unusually well this winter and the visits of the 

 doctor have practically ceased. He.has hardly been in the house for 

 any of us since the middle of last winter. Mrs. Barnes had a little 

 cold a week or so ago which shut her up for ten days, largely because 

 she over-used her eyes and was compelled to protect them from the light 



