Obviously it is
only reduced to a latent condition, as in so many other cases of loss of
color, since it reappears in a hybrid with the parent-species.
For my crosses I have taken the dark-centered "Mephisto" and the
"Danebrog," or Danish flag, with a white cross on a red field. The
second year the hybrids were all true to the type of "Mephisto." From
the seeds of each artificially self-fertilized capsule, one-fourth
(22.5%) [292] in each instance reverted to the varietal mark of the
white cross, and three-fourths (77.5%) retained the dark heart. Once
more the flowers were self-pollinated and the visits of insects
excluded. The recessives now gave only recessives, and hence we may
conclude that the varietal marks had returned to stability. The dark
hearted or dominants behaved in two different ways. Some of them
remained true to their type, all their offspring being dark-hearted.
Evidently they had returned to the parent with the active mark, and had
reassumed this type as purely as the recessives had reached theirs. But
others kept true to the hybrid character of the former generation,
repeating in their progeny exactly the same mixture as their parents,
the hybrids of the first generation, had given.
This third generation therefore gives evidence, that the second though
apparently showing only two types, really consists of three different
groups.
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