The Significance of the Alarists. 
559 
ginning of the spiral accurately in some cases by mark- 
ing and counting the pairs of leaves, as they made their 
appearance, from the moment of germination. But I 
have not yet plotted a curve from data collected in this 
extremely laborious way. On the other hand the number 
of straight internodes above the torsion can easilv be 
o j 
Fig 132. Valcriana officinalis. A stem with a local tor- 
sion, from the same culture as Fig. 122. (June 1900.) 
counted ; and their number obviously varies inversely 
with the extent of the twisted part. 
In 1900, when my eighth generation consisted of 
1295 flowering plants, I recorded the number of straight 
internodes above the torsion in everv twisted stem. Omit- 
