42 
Rhodora [FEBRUARY 
One oak of another group of several trees furnished just two two- 
seeded specimens, the nuts of all these trees being more nearly average 
in size for the species and normal in other respects. 
Two more two-seeded nuts were obtained, upon subsequent search, 
under the white oak from which came the one 
two-seeded acorn of that species mentioned above. 
Three out of over two-thousand nuts would evi- 
dently not attract attention except by pure acci- 
dent; but with a possible 10% two-seeded, as in 
the case of the two chestnut oaks under our ob- 
servation, one could not fail to notice some of the 
abnormal nuts upon giving any attention to the 
fallen crop. 
LI 
Fig. 2. Two em- In accordance with resolutions made last year, 
bryos from a 2-seeded 
hos I again visited these same oak trees this Novem- 
ber. I found, however, the acorn crop to have 
been very small this season, with apparently no abnormal fruits 
amongst the few acorns on the ground. In size, this year’s nuts are 
much smaller than those of 1912. The only two-seeded acorns I have 
noticed this season have been three from another white oak on the 
Maryland Agricultural College campus, and one from a very small- 
fruited chestnut oak west of Beltsville, Maryland. 
The commonly accepted characterization of the fruit of the beech 
family as a one-seeded nut may justify one in 
taking interest in the finding of so many two- 
seeded, and even a few three-seeded, acorns. I 
am prone to believe, however, that this abnor- 
mality is much more common with us than 
our records would indicate. In American lit- 
erature I find but one reference in this connec- 
tion, Mrs. E. G. Britton some time since, in 
the Bulletin of the Torrey Botanical Club, de- 
scribing and illustrating a single white oak 
acorn in which were extra cotyledons and two 
radicles. European writers, however, deserve 
credit for making record of not a few cases of 
teratological fruits of Quercus, Penzig, in his 
" Pflanzenteratologie," quoting Stenzel as the 
Fig. 3. A 2-seeded 
nut; sprouts on opposite 
sides, not at apex. 
recorder of many two- and three-seeded acorns of Q. Robur L., and 
