THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 



107 



and a House in its place. With this last change some people 

 figured that the plant would now get a rest, but alas, there 

 never was a man so sharp that there could not be one a little 

 bit sharper, and while the new edition of the "Illustrated 

 Flora" was in press, Nieuwland, who does not seem to care 

 whose work he musses up, dug up a still older name and now 

 the plant is Triorchis Plantagiiica (Raf.) Nwd. — or, that is, 

 it was so named the last time we looked. We wouldn't want 

 to say for certain. Nieuwland is pretty sharp when it comes 

 to Latin names but "There never was a man so sharp," etc., 

 and if anybody wanted to bet that the name would be changed 

 again we would not take him up ; besides it is not considered 

 ethical to bet on a sure thing! 



Mendel's Law and White Primroses. — Though the 

 rediscovery of Mendel's law occurred less than fifteen years 

 ago, even the general reader has become familiar with its 

 fundamental features. When we once understand the me- 

 chanics of crossing, it seems the most natural thing in the 

 world that the offspring from a cross of two pure-bred par- 

 ents should have within them the characteristics of both 

 parents, and that when the members of this second genera- 

 tion are bred together, the chances are that the new unions 

 would result practically in one-quarter like one grandparent, 

 one-quarter like the other grandparent and one-half like their 

 hybrid parents. In a few cases parental characteristics seem 

 to blend in their offspring, but in a majority of cases, only 

 one character of each pair of characters appears in the first 

 generation. A plant could not, for instance, be both red and 

 white, though a descendant from red and white ancestors. 

 One character, therefore, appears and we say it is dominant, 

 while the other is latent or recessive. We cannot say that 

 the latter is absent, for it is sure to appear in the next genera- 

 tion. The work of experimenting with animals and plants 

 has only fairly started but many remarkable facts have already 



