INVENTORY OF SEEDS AND PLANTS IMPORTED 

 BY THE OFFICE OF FOREIGN SEED AND PLANT 

 INTRODUCTION DURING THE PERIOD FROM 

 JANUARY 1 TO MARCH 31, 1916 (NO 46; NOS 

 41685 TO 42383). 



INTRODUCTOBY STATEMENT. 



This forty-sixth inventory of seeds and plants covers a period when 

 no official agricultural explorer was in the field, so the descriptions 

 are all of material sent in by correspondents or collaborators. 



The most interesting of the introductions, judged before they are 

 fasted, appear to be the following : 



Thirty-five selected varieties of wheat (Nos. 42102 to 4213G), the 

 result of much work in selection and acclimatization by the plant 

 breeders of Victoria, some of them being of recent introduction into 

 A-ustralia, while others are selections from types of old Australian 

 wheats. These were supplied by Mr. A. E. V. Richardson. Twenty- 

 six varieties of wheat (Nos. 41991 to 42016) from the United Prov- 

 inces of India, representing some old Indian types, were presented 

 by Mr. H. Martin Leake, of Cawnpore. While none of these may 

 prove especially valuable, it should be kept in mind that it was out 

 of a cross between an Indian wheat, Ladoga, and the Red Fife that 

 the famous Marquis wheat of Canada came. 



The discovery by the plant breeders of the Southeastern Agri- 

 cultural College of England of a nematode-resistant variety of hops, 

 Humulus lupulus (No. 42024), should call the attention of growers 

 to the resistance of this variety to the disease known as nettlehead, 

 or skinkly, and it may prove valuable in our hop fields. 



Since Mr. C. V. Piper's preliminary study of I'orage plants during 

 his trip to India in 1911, he lias continued to test many of the wild 

 and cultivated grasses of that region, and Nos. U885 to U900, U902 

 to 41907, 41910 to 41915, and 41918 to 41921 represent :i remarkable 

 collection of these grasses presented by Mr. William Burns, the 

 economic botanist of the station at Kirki, India. Among them are 

 included: Andropogon annulatus (No. 41885), a species well adapted 

 to the Gulf States; Cenchrus biflorw (No. 41894), related to our 

 sand bur, but considered in northern India as one of their most nu- 



