85 



conclude to poly em bryony ') without having thorougly examined 

 the interior of the nut. 



Cocos nucifera L. 



Coll. General J. G. H. de Voogt, Serangdjaja, Sumatra, 

 Aug. 1913. 



Habitat the tropics. 



It is a well-known fact that germinating coco-nuts now 

 and then produce two stems instead of one, but an occurrence 

 of great rarity and probably never recorded is that as many as 

 three stems should sprout froQi one nut as shown in fig. 5. When 

 the nut was carefully opened, no dissepiment whatever was visible. 



Only one germinating plant forcing its way through one of 

 the black spots was to be seen, but the stem of this young 

 plant showed a separation into three. The advanced state of 

 the (dry) specimen did not permit of a further examination into 

 the cause of the phenomenon, but of polyembryony there can 

 be no question. General de Voogt, Director of the Serang-djaja 

 Estates, Sumatra, added to his remarkable present the infor- 

 mation that according to his experience, only two coco-nuts with 

 two stems were found in every 1000 germinating coco-nuts but 

 only one with three stems in 40.000 germinating coco-nuts. 



Cocos nucifera L. 



Coll. Mr. DoMMERs, Ardjasa, Kangean Islands, January 1914. 



Habitat the Tropics. 



In former papers I drew attention to a phenomenon which 

 T termed ^paedogenesis" i. e. premature flowering of trees. The 

 two plants in which we observed this aberration are Melia and 

 Tectona -). A third instance of the same phenomenon has been 

 represented in fig. 6, showing a coco-nut germinating. The 

 nut itself is normal and well developed. The young plant w^as 

 firmly rooted and had produced eleven leaves. Six of these 

 are two-partite with linear lobes, one indistinct on account of 



1) Cf. this publication, Vol. XIII, 1895, p. 117. 



2) Vide this publication, 2e. serie, Vol. IX, p. 115. 



