466 
Vegetable Spiralism. 
By GEORGE MACLOSKIE. 
My paper on Antidromy* attempted to show that every pheno- 
gamic plant produces two kinds of seeds, having their embryos 
turning in opposite directions, according to the side of the car- 
pellary leaf on which they originated ; also that the forthcoming 
plants have a primitive twist in opposite directions, showing itself 
in the histology of the stem, the dextrorse or sinistrorse phyllotaxy 
and anthotaxy, and in some cases in the structure of the carpels. 
The statement that the grains of Maize produce dextrorse or sinis- 
trorse plants, according to the orthostichy of the ear in which they 
were produced, depended on hasty dissection; and although it 
seemed at first to be confirmed by the seedlings raised from the 
grains, I now find that there is no apparent constancy in this matter, 
My last experiment included nineteen seedlings gréwn from 
twenty grains taken in order from one of the paired rows in an ear 
(the row opposite my left hand) giving Nos. 1, 2, 3, 6, 8,9, 10, 12, 
15, 17, 20 with sinistrally overlapping leaves (Sc. the Ist leaf 
above the pileolus having its left margin external), and Nos. 4, 5, 
7, 11, 13, 14, 18, 19 with dextrally overlapping leaves (No. 16 
being abortive): thus giving eleven of one kind against eight of 
the other kind. In the grains from another homologous row, this 
proportion was nearly reversed. It is therefore necessary for the 
present to regard the beautiful symmetry of the ear of Maize 
(more beautiful in its early development than in its maturity) as 4 
rearrangement of members at first as promiscuously arranged as 
are the staminate flowers of its panicle.+ 
Besides cases previously cited we have significant examples of 
antidromy in the seeds of Salsola (figured in Engler and Prantl, 
3: 1a, 84. Y, Z), in the spirals of the Screw-pines, in the 
florets on the large head of the Sunflower and other large Com- 
positae, which concur with the phyllotaxy, and even in the sword- 
like leaves of Acorus Calamus, those of one plant being dextrorsely 
*BULLETIN, 22: 379. Correct: erratum, p- 380, three lines from foot, “ dis- 
tichous,” so as to read * tristichous.” 
+I am obliged to the eminent agrostologist, Prof. W. J. Beal, for friendly criticism 
on this point. 
