DEPARTMENT OE BOTANICAL RESEARCH. 69 



species, although the range of variability on any one plant is very narrow. 

 Furthermore, the color of the flowers of any individual is also constant from 

 one season to another. The differences seem to rest upon the degree to 

 which the deep red, always manifest in the apical portions of the petals, 

 overspreads the remainder of the flower. Similar relations prevail in the 

 stems. The color types are correlated with differences in structure of 

 flowers, fruits, and stems. Nothing is known as to the physiological charac- 

 ters accompanying these differences. The heredity of the various color- 

 types has not been tested, and this and other species of similar composition 

 present some very unusual genetic features. 



Some Relations between Halophytes and Saline Soils, by W. A. Cannon. 



Studies carried on in 1905 on the relation between halophytes and the 

 saline soils in which they habitually grow showed that the amount of soluble 

 salts in the species studied is characteristic of the species, and that individual 

 plants with the greatest amount of soluble salts grow in the portion of the 

 saline area where the salts are also most abundant. Soil analyses by the 

 Bureau of Soils, U. S. Department of Agriculture, showed that sodium is 

 an important element in saline soils, and that calcium (and magnesium) are 

 present in very small amounts. Plant analyses carried out under the direc- 

 tion of Prof. W. G. Gies, Columbia University, showed that the amount of 

 sodium varied in each of the species studied, being most in the species which 

 live in the soil where the element is present also in the greatest amount. 



A comparison of the relative amounts of sodium and calcium in the plants 

 of humid regions with the amounts in the salt plants shows that where the 

 one element is present in large percentage the other element is to be found 

 in small amount, and vice versa, the two elements being thus to a degree 

 mutually exclusive. 



It is suggested that the theory of antagonism of elements as presented by 

 Osterhout (The Permeability of Protoplasm to Ions and the Theory of 

 Antagonism, Science, n. s., vol. 35, 1912) may form an explanation of the 

 relation of the two elements as given above. 



Inductive Effect of Climatic Complexes upon Organisms, by D. T. 



Mac Don gal. 



The cultures of a number of species of plants at the montane plantation in 

 Arizona (8,000 feet), at the Desert Laboratory (2,300 feet), and at the 

 Coastal Laboratory at Carmel, California, have now been carried so far that 

 a number of species are growing under the widely different climatic com- 

 plexes offered by these localities and are offering some marked somatic 

 accommodations, some of which, as previously noted, are not in the nature 

 of adaptation or fitting adjustments. Analytic studies of these species have 

 been begun. The general character of the available results is denoted by the 

 data obtained from one of these forms given below. 



