I9I9. Pethybridge. — Hetewcarpy in Picris echioides. 27 



may at present be available, there is still one way in which 

 the desired information can sometimes be obtained, and 

 that is by sowing the seed and identifying the plant which 

 develops from it. 



Of course if the seed is dead this cannot be done, and 

 even if alive, strict precautions are necessary to ensure 

 that the plant which develops does, in reality, emanate 

 from the seed sown. Ordinary soil contains many viable 

 seeds and mistakes are liable to arise unless this fact is 

 taken into account. 



During recent years quite a number of unknown seeds 

 have been identified by this means at the Seed Testing 

 Station of the Department of Agriculture and Technical 

 Instruction, in the Royal College of Science, Dublin. On 

 some future occasion, perhaps, with the approval of the 

 Editors, some account of this work may be presented to 

 the readers of the Irish Naturalist . At present, however, 

 attention must be confined to one instance. 



In 1913 an unknown seed was found amongst the 

 impurities in a consignment of Lucerne seed. This 

 particular consignment came to England, but whether any 

 of it ever reached Ireland is not known. The same kind 

 of seed, however, has since then been found in stocks of 

 Red Clover seed imported into this country. 



The seed was curved in shape, of a creamy white colour 

 and slightly hairy. It resembled, on a very minute scale, 

 a peeled banana. It was sown in a pot of sterilised soil 

 and kept in a greenhouse. In 1914, to our surprise, it 

 produced a plant of the Bristly Ox-tongue, Picris echioides. 

 Hence it was clear that this plant must possess two kinds 

 of seeds (one-seeded fruits) which were quite unlike one 

 another externally. 



In 1918 specimens of this " peeled banana " type of seed 

 were submitted for identification by the EngKsh Seed 

 Testing Station recently estabhshed in London by the Food 

 Production Department of the Board of Agriculture and 

 Fisheries, and thus interest in the matter was again aroused. 

 In September of that year I was fortunate enough, during 

 my holidays, to be very favourably placed for the study 

 of the Bristly Ox-tongue, since it grew in considerable 



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