±8± JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



pod, while the most wrinkled Peas are large or are tightly packed in the 

 pod. It seems likely, therefore, that a great deal of irregularity in shape, 

 found in certain races with large round seeds may be directly due to the 

 struggle for growth among the Peas within the pod, altogether in spite of 

 the hereditary tendency to roundness. In the majority of races, the two 

 classes " Round " and " Wrinkled " are distinctly discontinuous, and breed 

 true to type when self-fertilised, so that it is hardly possible to confuse 

 one type with another. In some cases, however, as Professor Weldon has 

 carefully pointed out, there is a considerable range of variation both in 

 the " Round " and " Wrinkled " classes, forming in a few cases an almost 

 continuous series between the two (1902, pi. II.), and Mr. Bateson even 

 goes so far as to suggest that some races are normally intermediate in 

 shape (1902, p. 123). Professor Weldon admirably sums up the ordinary 

 discontinuous nature of the " Round " and " Wrinkled " categories, as 

 follows : " The categories are undoubtedly often discontinuous, the most 

 wrinkled seed of such a (round) race as 1 Empress ' or ' Victoria ' being so 

 much smoother and more rounded than the most regular seed of the 

 typically ' wrinkled ' races that no one who knows both races would 

 hesitate for a moment in deciding which race a given seed resembled." 

 (1902, p. 236.) W T e may therefore safely say, that in regard to seed shape 

 at all events, Mendel's categories of " Round " and " Wrinkled " (" angu- 

 lar ") are distinct and unambiguous. In selecting the "Round" and 

 " Wrinkled " races for my own experiments, I thought it would perhaps 

 simplify matters still more if I selected, for the first experiment, two 

 races which showed but little variation in seed shape. For the " Round " 

 race I chose ' Harrison's Early Eclipse,' and for the " Wrinkled," 'British 

 Queen.' 



Both races have been intimately known to me for twenty years, and I 

 have always found them reliable in their respective characters. Messrs. 

 Harrison & Sons of Leicester kindly inform me that their ' Eclipse ' was 

 originally a selection from the round blue-seeded ' Harbinger ' introduced 

 by Laxton early in the seventies. Mr. N. N. Sherwood, in his useful and 

 interesting paper on Garden Peas in this Journal, states that ' British 

 Queen ' is a direct descendant of ' Knight's Tall Wrinkled Marrow ' (1899, 

 p. 251), which was apparently obtained by Knight (that famous experi- 

 menter in horticulture, and former President of the Royal Horticultural 

 Society) from his numerous crossings between white and purple 

 flowered Peas in 1787. Though the details of Knight's experiments are 

 not altogether clear (1799, p. 195), yet it is interesting to note that in 

 many respects they plainly anticipated Mendel's own results. For in- 

 stance, in the dominance of tall habit over dwarf, purple flowers over 

 white, and " grey " (brown) seed coats over white ; also in the immediate 

 fixing of the tall dominants and the white-flowered and white-coated 

 recessives, both by self-fertilisation ("simple culture") of the tall purple- 

 flowered and grey-coated hybrids, as well as by recrossing with one of the 

 parent forms. Previous to Mendel's discoveries being made known, 

 Knight's experiments with Peas were practically unintelligible, but now, 

 in the light of Mendel, they appear quite obvious. There is no doubt as 

 to the antiquity of the 1 British Queen ' race, otherwise known as ' Knight's 

 Tall Wrinkled Marrow,' and if it originated from Knight's crosses in 1787 



