cook: pomegranate flowers 437 



attracted attention. A large series of seedlings is being raised 

 at Bard for breeding purposes, under the direction of Mr. Thomas 

 H. Kearney of the United States Department of Agriculture. 

 The fact that the fruit-bearing possibilities of the buds could be 

 determined before the flowers opened was noticed by Mr. G. B. 

 Gilbert, and this led to a more detailed examination. 



Tho it seems quite improbable that such a specialization 

 should not have been described before, the existence of two forms 

 of flowers in the pomegranate is not recognized in the chief works 

 of reference. Knuth's Handbook of Flower Pollination describes 

 the flowers of Punica as "homogamous .or protandrous," which 

 would be true of only the sterile or staminate flowers. On the 

 authority of Schultz it is stated that "The style is very short, and 

 may be either receptive during the dehiscence of the anthers or 

 become so after their pollen is shed. Autogamy by means of 

 pollen that remains in the flower is possible in both cases." Such 

 a statement might be made if the observations were limited to 

 an ornamental variety of the pomegranate that did not produce 

 perfect flowers. The same limitation might be inferred from a 

 statement by Niedenzu, in Engler and Prantl's Natiirlichen Pflan- 

 zen-Familien, that the ovary is often abortive. 



The bearing of the dioecious tendency upon the problem of 

 breeding fruiting varieties of pomegranates is obvious. Failure 

 to produce a sufficient number of the fertile flowers would render 

 a variety unproductive, tho it might blossom abundantly. On 

 the other hand, the possibility that some varieties require cross- 

 fertilization should receive consideration. 



