•J^ NOTE and COMMENT ^* 



MoxocARPY. — W'itli respect to flowering, plants fall into two 

 distinct gronps. In one, the flowers bear fruits only once and 

 then (lie; in the other, they may fruit annually over a long 

 term of years. Plants of the first group are known as mono- 

 carpic plants. The great majority of this latter group are of 

 course, annuals or biennials, but others retjuire a much longer 

 time to complete their life cycle. The classic instance of this 

 kind is found in the talipot palm (Coryplia) which grows for 

 forty years or more without a flower and after reaching a 

 height of upwards of fifty feet sends up in a single season, a 

 flowering shoot nearly as tall as itself, after which the plant 

 dies. There are a number of other plants whose branches 

 fruit but once, among which are the Solomon's seal, the lily- 

 of-the-valley and the peony, but in these the plant as a whole 

 is a perennial and lives for many years. The so-called century 

 plant and the yucca forn'i a sort of connecting link between 

 these two groups, for while the original plant dies after fruit- 

 ing it does not do so until it has given rise to a number of 

 new shoots which not only reproduce the old plant but also 

 multii)ly it. In the Journal of Botany, G. R. Wieland names 

 a number of other long term monocarpic plants including the 

 Mauritius hemp (Fnrcraca Americana), several of the bam- 

 boos (Banibusa), and the climbing bamboo {Chusquca ahie- 

 tifolia). Another interesting species menticMied is the "pride 

 of the mountain" {Spathelia simplex) which is native to 

 Jamaica. This species reaches a height of fifty feet with a 

 cluster of pinnate leaves three or four feet long at the top. 



