The Japanese Journal of Genetics

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1. About 300 varieties of cultivated rice came from various parts of the world were tested for germination for four times between January to August, under naturally alternating temperature conditions. Selected 10 or 20 unhulled grains of each variety were laid on a specially devised lowland rice seed-bed, and the date of germination was recorded when the white coleoptile came out of the soil surface.
2. Wide variations in the number of days for germination were noticed either for varieties or for individuals. Those varieties which came from the temperate regions, such as Japan proper, Tyosen and Italy germinated promptly, while the varieties of the tropical and subtropical parts, that is of India, Philippines, and Taiwan germinated slowly with some exceptions. The varieties came from China and U.S.A. generally germinated between of these two groups. The Russian varieties covered the all ranges of variation from the earliest to the latest (cf. Tables 2, 3, 4 and 5).
3. Though the germination occurred langsamly at lower temperatures, being especially so for the varieties of the tropical and subtropical regions, high correlation of the number of days for germinations was always noticed between the tests of lower and higher temperatures (cf. Tables 6, 7 and 8).
4. As shown in Tables 2 and 3, some varieties germinated intermittently under lower temperature conditions. Testing this special behaviour of germination again for 32 strains or varieties (Tables 9 and 10), the author proposed two possible ecological hypotheses to explain the intermittent behaviours of germination.

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The present paper deals with the inheritance of fruit shape in the eggplant, and its physiological interpretation. In the eggplant varieties there are various fruit shapes ranging from round, through cylinder and long, to very long. Perhaps the most accurate description of the fruit shape is given by fruit shape index.

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A pedigree of a family in which Fistula auris congenita occurs is presented here (Fig. 2). The mode of inheritance seems to agree with the idea that the trait was produced under the influence of an irregular dominant.

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