a er AT a oe op apr rye RN — ia ; > % a a 
BIOMETRIC DATA IN CRINUM LONGIFOLIUM. 89 
The other two cases, which have been investigated 
give :— 
For Staphylea, zz — .649 + .024 
For Celastrus, Tz; + .024 + .034 
The Staphylea material was a lot of immature inflorescences 
in which further failures would have taken place before 
maturity. The Celastrus series shows that the results 
obtained for Crinwm cannot be regarded as general. Only 
the investigation of many further series of data will enable 
one to speak with confidence concerning the relationship of 
the size of the inflorescence to its capacity for maturing 
its ovaries into fruits, or to discuss the factors involved. 
The constants already calculated suggest that the problem 
is one of real physiological interest. 
5. The Relationship between the Number of Fruits per 
Inflorescence and the Number of Seeds produced. 
A first step in ascertaining the factors which are active 
in determining the fertility of a fruit may be taken in 
the calculation of the correlation between the number of 
fruits per inflorescence and the number of seeds which 
these fruits contain.® If the development of an abnormally 
large number of fruits per inflorescence makes severe de- 
mands upon the plastic materials which can be supplied 
to it, then, one might expect a negative correlation between 
the number of fruits matured and the number of seeds 
developing per fruit. On the other hand, the greater 
number of fruits on some inflorescences may merely indi- 
cate superior vigor, or feeding; in this case, the number 
of seeds per fruit might tend to increase as the number of 
fruits per inflorescence becomes larger. Doubtless both are 
active factors and must ultimately be analyzed out and 
measured individually. Doubtless the two factors tend, in 
many cases, to cancel each other, giving a resultant correla- 
9 This has been done for an extensive series of fruits of Staphylea. 
See two papers, one in the Botanical Gazette 53 : 204-218; 396-414. 
1912; and another in the Beihefte zum Botanischen Centralblatt I. 28 : 
1-16. 1912. 
