Che OF ta oO re 
ie saat oe r 
PROLIFICATION OF FRUIT. 141 
fourcarpels. He figures and describes in considerable detail. 
prolification in fruits of P. gracilis in the Botanical Gar- 
den at Freiburg. He finds the produced axis bearing an in- 
definite number of carpels, sometimes over sixteen, having 
more or less completely developed stigmas and producing 
on their edges, which cohere in various degrees, a limited 
number of ovules. In several cases the main axis bore a 
lateral branch, which in turn produced a number of carpels 
of diverse degrees of development. Wigand * describes 
the structure of the enclosed shoot of P. gracilis in detail. 
Miiller t describes briefly prolification of the fruit of P. 
alata. In several fruits of this species he found a per- 
fectly developed flower bud. The fruits contained an 
abundance of good seeds. A plant raised from these had 
produced, up to the time of the writing of his paper, only 
normal fruits. 
In the summer of 1902, vigorous specimens of P. gracilis 
were growing in the Missouri Botanical Garden in part in 
the Cycad house and in part over a lattice in the open air. 
My observations are based upon the examination of 167 
proliferous fruits secured by dissecting 4,240 fruits. The 
material was collected in four lots, the first. taken from 
the vines growing in the greenhouse and the last three 
from those on the outside. Lots one and two were gath- 
ered early in October, the third was taken October 25, and 
the fourth lot about five days later. The distribution of 
the material was as follows: — 
Lot I. 558 normal, 39 proliferous—6.5 per cent. 
Lot II. 1402 normal, 56 proliferous — 3.9 per cent. 
Lot III. 1239 normal, 38 proliferous — 2.9 per cent. 
Lot IV. 874 normal, 34 proliferous — 3.7 per cent. 
—_ 
Total. 4073 normal, 167 proliferous aan per cent. 
! 
* Wigand, A. Bot. Hefte. Forsch. a.d. Bot. Gart. Marburg. 2: 125- 
126. 1885. : 
+ Miller, F. Flora. 78 3332-883. fig. 1890. 
