1915] Goodspeed: Parthenogenesis, Parthenocarpy, Phenospernuj 251 



However, she makes the following rather ambiguous remark in des- 

 cribing these same experiments in another publication (1913). "La 

 Parthenogenese on Apogamie pent se produire dans plusieurs especes 

 ou varietes de Nicotiana. Les graines parthenogenetiques semees 

 reproduiseni identiquement I'espece ou la variete, ou bien, si ces 

 graines sont obtenues comme resultat d'un croisement en F^ ou F., 

 la segregation attendue dans la couleur des fleurs se produit. ' ' Bate- 

 son, also, has confirmed Mrs. Thomas' results for the N. Tahacum 

 variety which she employed in her experiments (cf. Bateson, 1913). 



IMrs. Thomas, at my request, was kind enough to send me seed 

 of the "Nic. tahaccnm Cuba" which is referred to in her paper 

 (p. 2). I take the liberty of quoting extracts from a letter of ]\Irs. 

 Thomas' which describes the origin of the seed and adds certain 

 details of interest. "Since then [the appearance of her original 

 paper in the Mendel Journal] I have every season produced parthe- 

 nogenetic seed from one or more Nicotiana, though the conditions 

 for growing the plants here [Moyles Court, Ringwood] are not so 

 favorable as at Creech ( ?) Grange, Wareham, where I first made trials 

 for parthenogenesis and succeeded in so many varieties." The seed 

 which I obtained from Mrs. Thomas was one capsule of "the original 

 seed gathered in the Garden of Casa Loring at Malaga in 1908." 

 In 1913 this original seed "produced two or three hundred plants" 

 in Mrs. Thomas' garden. Her letter further states that she uses 

 " unperf orated wax-paper bags for the protection and very young 

 buds for castration" and that parthenogenesis had been found for 

 "the poppy and a variety of Delphinium as well as Oenothera hiennis 

 and parthenocarpy in many plants which fail to ripen their seed." 

 Further details as to the origin of "Xic. tabaccum Cuba" are given 

 in Mrs. Thomas' paper (1909, p. 2; cf. Bateson, 1913). 



The record of the germination tests with this seed is unfortu- 

 nately missing, but no difficulty was experienced in obtaining 95 

 plants in the field this past season (191-4) from a small sowing 

 of seed. 



Mrs. Thomas thus describes ".Y/c. fahaccuni Cuba:" 



The plant is taller than most other N. iahaccums, and is 6i/4 to 7 ft. in 

 height, and the stems are very thick; it flowers at first in a terminal cluster 

 and afterwards axially. The limb and tube are pure white; the corolla is some- 

 times four-petalled with four stamens, sometimes five-petalled with five stamens, 

 and both forms are found on the same plant. It is a freely pollinating plant, 

 for under protection from insects it will seed every blossom. 



