wsi ON THE GROWTH OF THE HYACINTH FLOWER-STALK. 
the general law as stated by Sachs (‘'Text-book,’ English ed. p. 749 et seq.), that “the 
plant will, according to circumstances, sometimes grow more quickly by day, sometimes 
by night, without exhibiting any exactly recurrent periodicity,” the difference, however, 
being never so great as that stated by Münter. My own observations are more in 
accordance with this. 
Since writing the above, my attention has been called by Prof. Sachs to a series of 
papers by Reinke in the * Botanische Zeitung’ for the present year, on the phenomena 
of growth of stems. His experiments were made entirely on the flower-stems of Endogens, 
chiefly Juncus, Scirpus, and Narcissus; but the only point that bears on the present 
inquiry is the statement that “ the part of Narcissus in which growth takes place is 
entirely beneath the earth, and of the rushes within the leaf-sheath, all the parts which 
rise above the earth having already completed their growth." Unfortunately Reinke 
does not give the measurements on which he founds this statement; and, if correct, it 
presents а singular want of harmony with the law of growth exhibited in the Hyacinth. 
The point seems to deserve further careful investigation. 
А very few measurements which I made on the leaves of the Hyacinth indicate that 
the increase in length in them takes place entirely in the basal portion, at least after 
they have attained a considerable length (see Sachs, *'lext-book,' English ed. p. 137). 
Whether, however, the cell-division is carried on actually beneath the surface of the soil, 
as stated by Reinke to be the case in the stem of Narcissus, I am unable to say. 
