Florida Agricultural Experiment Station


and hybrids are summarized in Tables 1 to 6 with frequency
distributions, means, standard errors, variances, numbers tested,
and percent of germination. It was originally planned to study
F2 segregation by characterizing each F, and F3 plant with the
mean record of its progeny. Large variance of rest period in
pure strains indicated that such a plan might be desirable. How-
ever, asymmetric distribution of rest period in many samples
made that plan unsatisfactory. As is well known, averaging
distorts asymmetric data. Frequency distributions of single
seeds and means of samples from single plants are presented
together in the tables. Distortion from averaging may be seen
in many of them, e. g. in the large sample of F4 seeds at the
bottom of Table 4. The lower entry is the distribution of single
seeds. Immediately above, the same data are classified by F3
plant means, each mean being calculated from a sample of F4
seeds produced by a single F3 plant. Averaging has shifted the
mode from the first to the second class and has thus obliterated
the critical evidence for the interpretation of rest period be-
havior given below.
 Referring only to distributions of single seeds in a general
view of the several tables it is first apparent that rest period
is a multigenic character. If the first class, the class of zero
rest period of each distribution, is neglected and attention is
confined to the remaining classes the picture coincides very
nicely with a little more than the right one-half of the classical
picture of quantitative or multigenic inheritance. A little less
than the left one-half is seemingly compressed in the first class.
 This behavior of rest period may be plausibly explained by
the nature of the character itself. Rest period is necessarily
a reflection of some variable condition of seeds at maturity.
That basic seed condition is a complex character which physi-
ological studies in other species have failed to identify. It is
transformed by after-ripening to a state where germination
will occur if the outer environment is favorable. Peanut seeds
lie fully dormant in rest period tests until germination begins
suddenly and proceeds at a normal rate. An abrupt threshold
of germination is indicated. Germination threshold on the
range of seed condition and zero on the range of rest period
are coincident points. They coincide ideally with the first class
in the present records, and this class has breadth only as an
expression of imperfect experimental technic in measuring zero
rest period. Zero is a lower limit of rest period but there is