229 



The perfume is not developed until the parts of the flower are highly 

 turgid, and the anther cap as well as the antennae capable of causing 

 expulsion of the pollen, shows that there is no special plan for ferti- 

 lization, but the various sizes of the insects which visit the flower, 

 and the several means of inducing the discharge of the pollen masses, 

 show that the apparatus is capable of efiecting fertilization by means 

 of more than one insect and in more than one manner, and that latent 

 mechanical action is a potent factor made use of by the flower to secixre 

 this result. J. H. HART. 



213-CIRC ULAR NOTES. 



Botanical Department, Trinidad. — Circular Note No. 31. 



Young Seedling Sugar Canes. 



Planters interested in raising seedling sugar canes or wishing 



to obtain an acquaintance with their earliest form as raised fi'om seed, 



can now see growing at the Royal Botanic Gardens, numerous young 



plants. 



The appearance of the young plants is so similar to that of 

 many other species of grasses, that they might easily be mistaken by 

 those unacquainted with the character of their growth. In fact it is 

 highly probable that thousands of young seedling canes have been 

 annually hoed away for weeds when the clearing of cane fields has 

 been in progress. 



22nd January, 1896. J. H. HART. 



214.— IMPROVEMENT OP THE SUGAR CANE. 



There was a time not very long ago Avhen the proposal to raise 

 sugar canes from the seeds Avould have been treated with ridicule. 

 To-day happily it is not only known that the sugar cane will grow 

 from seed, but that the amount of variation which is shown when 

 plants are produced from seeds, is someAvhat remarkable. This is 

 beautifully illustrated on the fields devoted to the raising of seedlings 

 in Demerara and Barbados, and may be seen on a somewhat smaller 

 scale in the Royal Botanic Gardens. 



The history of the share taken by the Trinidad Gardens in rais- 

 ing seedlings may be briefly recorded. In the Annual Report of the 

 Department fur 1890 it was shewn that the prospects of raising canes 

 from seeds were of a very encouraging nature, and that plants had 

 been raised from seeds collected in Barbados. In the following year 

 seeds from Barbados were again received, but none of them germinated. 

 From that time no canes had been raised from seed in the Trinidad 



