1. For the study of the colouration of the seed coat of Japanese morning glory (
Pharbitis Nil), a cross was made between a brown seed variety and a white seed one carrying a gene
br (brown). In F
2, brown and white segregated in the ratio of 3:1, with a mixture of some black ones and a mosaic plant which bore both black seed pods and brown seed pods. In F
3 it was possible to confirm that the resulting black ones were due to the revertion of brown to black in the germ cells of F
1 and that the mosaic plant had resulted from the somatic revertion which had occurred early in the meso-histogen and late in one part of the ecto-histogen of a brown individual in F
_??_.
2. On the upper stem of some brown individuals of F
2 derived from crosses between black and brown were found some abnormal brown seed pods containing a mixture of black seeds and black striped brown seeds. Further raising of these plants showed that the resulting black seed might have been due to the vegetative mutation which had taken place either only in the ecto-histogen or both in the ecto-histogen and meso-histogen.
3. The striped seeds may result in either of the following two cases: (1) When the false brown seed of the constitution known as
Brbr or
BrBr results from the vegetative mutation which has happened early in the meso-histogen, mutated reversionary in the ecto-histogen in the late stage. (2) When mutation occurs in the brown seed late in the ecto-histogen only.
4. Therefore a gene
br concerned with brown is a mutable gene, which frequently changes both vegetatively and seminally to its dominant condition.
5. Seminal mutation may be said to occur in about 4 per cent of the cases, though the experiments were not sufficient in number to make it possible to fix the exact percentage. Vegetative mutation may occur either separately or coincidentally in the meso-histogen and ecto-histogen, the occurrence being most frequent during the early and late stages of the ontogenesis.
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