GAMETE PRODUCTION IN CERTAIN CROSSES WITH 
“ROGUES” IN PEAS 1 
By Wilber Brotherton, Jr. 
Assistant Pathologist, Office of Cotton, Truck, and Forage Crop Disease Investiga¬ 
tions, Bureau of Plant Industry, United States Department of Agriculture 
The inheritance of the narrow, pointed stipuled mutation or “rabbit-eared” 
Togue in garden peas, Pisum sativum L., is unusual. Bateson and Pellew 2 found 
that in crosses with the parent, or broad, obtusely stipuled type, the rogue 
character is dominant, and that in the F 2 and succeeding generations only rogues 
appear. There is a failure of the expected segregation into rogue and type 
plants. 
Besides the extremely narrow and the very broad stipuled plants, the same 
authors 3 » 4 described certain intermediate forms which on self-fertilization give 
varying proportions of rogues, intermediates, and types in their progenies. 
Intermediates showing a high percentage of rogues among their offspring showed 
a progressive increase in the percentage of rogues to nonrogues among their 
progeny when comparing plants derived from the lower nodes with offspring 
from the upper nodes of the same intermediate plant. The change in ratio 
between the two classes of plants was accounted for by a corresponding increase 
among the male gametes of those bearing the rogue factors. The authors point 
out an association between the excessive production of rogues in the F x hybrids 
and the progressive change in the numerical proportions of rogues to types in 
the progeny of intermediates on the one hand with a progressive change during 
growth from type to rogue, in the somatic appearance of both the F t hybrids 
and the intermediates on the other. 
In 1923 s the writer reported the fact of segregation in the F 2 generation of 
•crosses between Gradus rpgue and typical plants of Mummy, a nonrogue- 
producing variety of peas. Although both rogues and nonrogues appeared in the 
F 2 and F 3 generations of this cross, the ratio between the two classes of segre¬ 
gates did not accord with any known Mendelian system. The rogues greatly 
outnumbered the nonrogues. The F x hybrids resembled in their genetic behavior 
the intermediates described by Bateson and Pellew, but no data were secured 
as to the character of the progeny at successive nodes or of the actual ratio of 
rogue to nonrogue gametes among the ovules and pollen grains. 
From the facts obtained, the hypothesis was advanced that rogues arise de novo 
from the parent type by mutation of a single factor, x to X. It is believed 
that the heterozygous Xx combination is very unstable. In the presence of X 
i Received for publication April 12,1924—issued Nov., 1924. 
1 Bateson, W., and Pellew, C. on the genetics or “rogues” among culinary peas (pisum 
sativum). Jour. Genetics 5:13-36, illus. 1915. 
* Bateson, W., and Pellew, C. note on an orderly dissimilarity in inheritance from different 
■parts OF A PLANT. Proc. Roy. Soc. [London] (B) 89:174-175. 1916. 
4 - the genetics of “rogues” among culinary peas (pisum sativum). Proc. Roy. Soc. [Lon¬ 
don] (B) 91:186-195. 1920. 
• Brotherton, W. E., Jr. further studies of the inheritance of “rogue” type in garden 
peas (pisum sativum l.) Jour. Agr. Research 24: 815-852, illus. 1923. 
Vol. XXVIII, No. 12 
June 21,1924 
Key No. G-387 
Journal of Agricultural Research, 
Washington, D. C. 
(1247) 
