VULGARIS L. AND IN PH. MULTIFLORUS WILLD. 99 
in the species above named, as established by them; results of 
newly grown artificial and spontaneous crossings will build the 
second part. The previous literature is arranged according to the 
factors, discussed therein; the results of my own researches will 
be given in connection with the crosses, by which they have been 
detected. 
PREVIOUS LITERATURE. 
a. PHASEOLUS VULGARIS. 
In his classic paper MENDEL (1865) has already given some notes 
upon the results of a cross between Ph. vulgaris (Ph. nanus L.) as 
mother and Ph. multiflorus Willd. as the male plant. The firstnamed 
species had white seedcoats, the father showed seeds with a black 
spotted and marbled pattern upon a peach-red groundcolour. The 
seeds of the hybrid were like those of the fatherplant; in the 
Fo-generation 30 coloured and only one white plants were obtained 
and this proportion encouraged the genius of MENDEL to establish 
the now well-known principle of polymeric factors, „if only we 
might assume that colour of the flowers and seeds of P. multiflorus 
is a combination of two or more entirely independent colours, 
which individually act like any other constant character in the 
plant”. MENDEL’s rather scarce materials were not sufficient for a 
more detailed analysis and a more conclusive exposure. 
In the first year after the reviving of mendelism, TSCHERMAK as first 
has tried to obtain numerical proportions from his bean-crossings; a 
number of papers has been published since by this author relative to 
these researches. His first contribution (1901) to our knowledge of 
these colourfactors had only the F‚-generations in view, and the value 
of the characters, in which both parents were different; the F,-cultures 
and the numerical proportions resulting from them, were published 
in 1902. Summarizing papers, giving more new data, have appeared 
in 1904, and later on, in 1912. With regard to the pair of factors: 
coloured-white, his results in a very extensive material followed 
the mendelian proportion 3:1, not only for the whole of his 
cultures, but also in regard to these cultures, as taken one for 
one. He found indeed in some of his Fo-families from crossings 
between coloured and white races 488 coloured against 161 white 
