Inheritance of Mutation in the Common Foxglove. 5 7 
offspring are obtained. Further observation, however, is required 
to determine how far the degree of heptandry exhibited by the 
parent is reproduced in the offspring. So far as it goes, however, 
the evidence indicates that the offspring of a plant with a range 
from a moderate to a high degree of reversion will exhibit, on the 
whole, a greater degree of reversion than the offspring of a plant 
whose range in the reversionary scale is lower. At the same time 
certain facts observed in regard to the distribution of the various 
forms in the different beds suggest that, though the lieptandra 
character is evidently transmitted to all the offspring, it is probable 
that the external conditions affect the precise degree in which this 
modification is exhibited. The facts were as follows:— 
In the case of family 2 the mixed seed of several capsules had 
been divided into two lots, which were sown, pricked out, and planted 
separately, lot 1 in a narrow bed facing south, lot 2 in the middle 
of a bed facing east, and somewhat shaded to the south and west. 
The bed containing lot 1—a strip lying between a privet hedge and 
the path—was particularly dry and fully exposed to the sun. Out of 
a total of 27 classified plants in this bed only 4 eventually produced 
flowers with a normal or nearly normal corolla, while in as many as 
16 of the remainder the late flowers were still of the lieptandra form 
proper with 6 and 7 stamens. On the other hand among the 17 
classified plants in the other bed, 8, i.e ., nearly half, eventually pro¬ 
duced normal or almost normal flowers, and only 5 showed the 
lieptandra form proper at the end of the season. Again in family 3, 
which had been similarly treated, the inequality in the distribution 
of the various grades in some of the beds was no less striking, 
though in this case the influence of the environment as a whole 
seems to result, in a lessening, rather than in an increase of the 
reversionary tendency in the more shaded lot of plants, as compared 
with those situated rather more in the open. Thus of 28 classified 
plants growing in a bed very much overshadowed by trees, only 1 
eventually produced flowers at all approaching to normal, whereas 
in another lot planted a little more in the open all the 13 classified 
plants eventually produced flowers with a tubular corolla, and in 10 
out of these 13 the late flowers were completely normal. 
From the foregoing facts we may then conclude that the 
variety lieptandra transmits its peculiar constitution to all its 
offspring, but the extent to which the abnormality is developed in 
an individual inheriting this disposition to heptandry may be in 
some degree influenced by external conditions, among which 
