racter; but that if it grows from the
centre or heart of the plant, whatever the colour of the edging ought
to be, "it is just as likely to come in any other class as in the one
to which it properly belongs." This is so notorious a {347} fact, that
some florists regularly pinch off the central trusses of flowers.
Whether in the highly improved varieties the departure of the central
trusses from their proper type is due to reversion, I do not know. Mr.
Dombrain insists that, whatever may be the commonest kind of
imperfection in each variety, this is generally exaggerated in the
central truss. Thus one variety "sometimes has the fault of producing a
little green floret in the centre of the flower," and in central blooms
these become excessive in size. In some central blooms, sent to me by
Mr. Dombrain, all the organs of the flower were rudimentary in
structure, of minute size, and of a green colour, so that by a little
further change all would have been converted into small leaves. In this
case we clearly see a tendency to prolification--a term which, I may
explain to those who have never attended to botany, means the
production of a branch or flower, or head of flowers, out of another
flower. Now Dr. Masters[866] states that the central or uppermost
flower on a plant is generally the most liable to prolification. Thus,
in the varieties of the Auricula, the loss of their proper character
and a tendency to prolification, and in other plants a tendency to
prolification and pelorism, are all connected together, and are due
either to arrested development, or to reversion to a former condition.

The following is a more interesting case; Metzger[867] cultivated in
Germany several kinds of maize brought from the hotter parts of
America, and he found, as has been previously described, that in two or
three generations the grains became greatly changed in form, size, and
colour; and with respect to two races he expressly states that in the
first generation, whilst the lower grains on each head retained their
proper character, the uppermost grains already began to assume that
character which in the third generation all the grains acquired. As we
do not know the aboriginal parent of the maize, we cannot tell whether
these changes are in any way connected with reversion.

In the two following cases, re