Insignificant as the results of this experiment may be as regards the determination of the relative numbers in which the various forms appeared, it presents, on the other hand, the phenomenon of a remarkable change of colour in the flowers and seed of the hybrids. In _Pisum_ it is known that the characters of the flower- and seed-colour present themselves unchanged in the first and further generations, and that the offspring of the hybrids display exclusively the one or the other of the characters of the original stocks[43]. It is otherwise in the experiment we are considering. The white flowers and the seed-colour of _Ph. nanus_ appeared, it is true, at once in the first generation [_from_ the hybrids] in one fairly fertile example, but the remaining thirty plants developed flower colours which were of various grades of purple-red to pale violet. The colouring of the seed-coat was no less varied than that of the flowers. No plant could rank as fully fertile; many produced no fruit at all; others only yielded fruits from the flowers last produced, which did not ripen. From fifteen plants only were well-developed seeds obtained. The greatest disposition to infertility was seen in the forms with preponderantly red flowers, since out of sixteen of these only four yielded ripe seed. Three of these had a similar seed pattern to _Ph. multiflorus_, but with a more or less pale ground colour; the fourth plant yielded only one seed of plain brown tint. The forms with preponderantly violet coloured flowers had dark brown, black-brown, and quite black seeds. [43] [This is the only passage where Mendel can be construed as asserting universal dominance for _Pisum_; and even here, having regard to the rest of the paper, it is clearly unfair to represent him as predicating more than he had seen in his own experiments. Moreover in flower and seed-coat colour (which is here meant), using his characters dominance must be almost universal, if not quite.] The experiment was continued through two more generations under similar unfavourable circumstances, since even among the offspring of fairly fertile plants there were still some which were less fertile or even quite sterile. Other flower- and seed-colours than those cited did not subsequently present themselves. The forms which in the first generation [bred from the hybrids] contained one or more of the recessive characters remained, as regards these, constant without exception. Also of those plants which possessed violet flowers and brown or black seed, some did not vary again in these respects in the next generation; the majority, however, yielded, together with offspring exactly like themselves, some which displayed white flowers and white seed-coats. The red flowering plants remained so slightly fertile that nothing can be said with certainty as regards their further development.