38 



KANSAS UNIVERSITY SCIENCE BULLETIN. 



cent. In addition to this fact, it is rare to see a seed pod of S. 

 rostratiim which has been destroyed by insects or other destruc- 

 tive agencies, while in 460 pods of C. chamsecrista which were 

 examined at Lake View, September 4, not one was found which 

 did not have some of the ovules destroyed by the larva' of some 

 insect, and probably this would amount on the average to fifty 

 per cent, of all the seeds produced, being in the case of some 

 plants as high as seventy-five per cent. 



A convenient method of approaching the question of the pro- 

 duction of seeds might be to determine the number of seed pods 

 produced on a given area of ground. A general idea may be 

 obtained from the examination of the plants growing upon two 

 square feet of ground. In the first case, the plants were much 

 crowded ; in the second, not nearly so much so ; in fact, it may 

 be said they were growing under "normal" conditions. It 

 might be interesting to compare the results. The material for 

 the two tables was taken September 4. 



FIRST SQUARE FOOT. 



Plant 



1, pocis 

 2, 







10 

 4 



13 

 



12 

 3 

 1 

 4 

 3 

 



25 

 2 

 

 



Plant 16, pods 10 



Total, 28, pods 109 



SECOND SQUARE FOOT. 



pod 



1 

 50 

 36 

 15 

 48 

 34 



9 



Plant 8, pods 11 



9, " 9 



" 10, " 3 



" 11, " 



" 12, " 7 



Total, 12, pods 223 



In the first square foot of ground, where the plants were much 

 crowded, of the twenty-eight plants, ten produced no seed pods 

 at all, and of the remaining eighteen only six produced over five 

 each. On these plants an average of a little less than four pods 

 per plant was produced. In the second lot, where, evidently, 



