UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PUBLICATIONS 



IN 



BOTANY 



Vol. 5, No. 14, pp. 435-437, plate 54, 1 figure in text September 25, 1918 



AN APPARATUS FOR FLOWER MEASUREMENT 



BY 



T. IT. GOODSPEED axd E. E. CLAUSEN 



For a number of years we have been collecting data concerning 

 the inheritance of flower size in hybrids between two varieties of 

 Nicotiana Langsdorffii. It was early seen to be impracticable to 

 attempt any measurements of fresh flowers in the field. For reasons 

 disciLssed elsewhere^ it seemed advisable to measure the first twenty- 

 five flowers produced by each plant, and when from four hundred to 

 eight hundred plants are involved this can be accomplished only by 

 picking the flowers each day from every plant and preserving them 

 in fluid (2% formalin) to be measured in the laboratory. For making 

 these measurements the machine described below was devised. A 

 description of it is given at this time because the results of our experi- 

 ments cannot for the present be published, and it seems possible that 

 others may be able to employ the apparatus, or some modification of it, 

 in similar investigations. The original suggestion which led to the 

 perfecting of the apparatus described was given to us by Dr. R. Gold- 

 schmidt, to whom our thanks are due. We are indebted to Mr. V. 

 Arntzen of the Department of Civil Engineering of the University 

 of California, who constructed the machine under our direction, for 

 his helpful interest. 



The accompanying drawing (pi. 54) is self-explanatory, and it is 

 only necessary to describe the way in which the apparatus is used in 

 making the flower mea-surements. The flowers of N. Langsdorffii are 

 slender tubed, with a spreading limb provided with shallow and round- 

 pointed lobes. The flowers are taken from the formalin solution, 

 washed in water and the calyces removed. They are then cut with 



1 Goodspeefl, T. TT., and Clausen, E. E., Amer. Jour. Bot., vol. 2, pp. 3.32-374, 

 1915. 



