386 
ing sympodial development is interesting. The number of in- 
stances in which flowering peduncles of Leguminose are extra- 
axillary through sympodial growth is rather larger than at first 
suspected. The Germans call these webergiphelte inflorescences. 
The word sympodial expresses the opposite of these relations and 
is therefore not a good term with which to designate such inflor- 
escences. Some better English term, meaning chrust aside, should 
be sought, and used in the manuals of botany for the many cases 
where such inflorescences occur. This would be a way to advance 
morphological botany. Unless such a word can be found, perhaps 
the term superseded inflorescences might do. 
Cotton.—The cotton plant is of course so well understood that 
nothing of botanical interest can be added to our information. 
Attention is only called to the fact that the inflorescences here are 
again morphologically terminal, superseded by the sympodial 
growth of axillary branches. The flower of the upland cotton, 
Gossypium album, Ham., is pale yellowish or greenish white early 
in the morning. Towards noon it becomes tinged with rose, and 
in the later afternoon it is of a strong rose-red color. Changes of 
color of plants on fading indicate possibilities as to the normal col- 
ors of flowers in the distant future, or earlier by process of selection. 
Nature often has solved this problem already by giving to one spe- 
cies a color as anormal color which another species of the genus s¢- 
cures only on fading. In the Sea Island cotton, G. nigrum, Ham., 
the deep rose-red color is found normally, but only as blotches at 
the base of the petals on the inside. It would be easy to produce 
cotton with rose-red flowers. 
The Practical Utilization of Phyllotaxy in Tobacco Culture. AS 
soon as the flower buds of tobacco begin to appear quite gener- 
ally in the fields, the tops of the tobacco plants are cut off. De 
pending upon the vigor of the plant, the existing conditions of 
rain, soil, etc., the plants are topped at various heights. An 
expert tobacco grower will top plants at heights varying with 
the vigor of the individual plants. When, however, he sends a — 
less experienced “hand” into the field, as often he must, he 
looks at the field as a whole, and then instructs the hand to top 
the tobacco at the eighth, tenth or twelfth leaf, as the case May 
be. The hand, of course, does not stop to count. He looks at 
