All these observations are of considerable interest theoretically; they show that the action of environment certainly induces such internal changes, and that these are transmitted to the next generation. But as regards the main question, whether constant races may be obtained by this means, the experiments cannot as yet supply a definite answer. In phanerogams, the influence very soon dies out in succeeding generations; in the case of bacteria, in which it is only a question of the loss of a character it is relatively easy for this to reappear. It is not impossible, that in all such cases there is a material hanging-on of certain internal conditions, in consequence of which the modification of the character persists for a time in the descendants, although the original external conditions are no longer present. Thus a slow dying-out of the effect of a stimulus was seen in my experiments on Veronica chamaedrys. (Klebs, "Kunstliche Metamorphosen", Stuttgart, 1906, page 132.) During the cultivation of an artificially modified inflorescence I obtained a race showing modifications in different directions, among which twisting was especially conspicuous. This plant, however, does not behave as the twisted race of Dipsacus isolated by de Vries (de Vries, "Mutationstheorie", Vol. II. Leipzig, 1903, page 573.), which produced each year a definite percentage of twisted individuals. In the vegetative reproduction of this Veronica the torsion appeared in the first, also in the second and third year, but with diminishing intensity. In spite of good cultivation this character has apparently now disappeared; it disappeared still more quickly in seedlings. In another character of the same Veronica chamaedrys the influence of the environment was stronger. The transformation of the inflorescences to foliage-shoots formed the starting-point; it occurred only under narrowly defined conditions, namely on cultivation as a cutting in moist air and on removal of all other leaf-buds. In the majority (7/10) of the plants obtained from the transformed shoots, the modification appeared in the following year without any interference. Of the three plants which were under observation several years the first lost the character in a short time, while the two others still retain it, after vegetative propagation, in varying degrees. The same character occurs also in some of the seedlings; but anything approaching a constant race has not been produced.