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are now found. Their ancestors would have been defined as dis- 
tinct species. Now, our early spring flowers seem to differ from 
their ancestors usually in producing fewer leaves and a shorter 
stem; these, together with the flower-buds of next year, are 
already stored away by fall in underground buds, ready to come 
up at the first flush of spring and blossom long before the sur- 
rounding vegetation has managed to unfold its leaves and to get 
strength enough to produce blossoms. In some plants, as in Saz- 
guinaria Canadensis, L. the plants are content to produce only 
one flower on each stem, and in order to further assist in its rapid 
blossoming, this single flower almost always terminates the 
stem, thus securing the first flow of sap, and incidentally giving 
rise to sympodial growth. Such plants frequently produce 
flowers before the leaves have been even moderately developed. 
Sympodial growth is also frequent among plants possessing a 
compound inflorescence, although here its immediate use is not 
always so evident. In Symplocarpus foetidus, Salisb., where this 
sympodial structure may be only theoretically followed, the ad- 
vantage may well be doubted. Spring flowers, therefore, by the 
decrease of the number of their leaves and also often by the re- 
duction of the number of flowers to be produced, have made it 
possible to prepare the parts necessary for next year’s growth 
during the previous autumn and then to develop them rapidly in 
the spring.* But they are continually giving signs of their ori- 
gin by producing more leaves, as in Podophyllum peltatum, L. +, 
or by producing a greater number of flowers or even a compound 
inflorescence, as in Sanguinaria Canadensis, L. t, or by increasing 
the number of both, as in Caulophyllum. | When we consider, 
however, that their present state is in reality the abnormal one, it 
does not appear so strange that reversion to the old types should 
take place, and usually it takes only patience and a great num- 
ber of specimens to detect such cases of reversion. Often they 
become so frequent as to attract no attention arid are then in- 
cluded in the specific description of the plant. a 
AuG. F. FOERSTE. 
* The Hibernacula of Herbs. Am. Nat., Nov., 1883. 
t The May Apple. Bull. Torrey Bot. Club, June, 1884. 
t Notes on Sanguinaria Canadensis. Bull. Torrey Bot. Club, April, 1887. 
