24 CIRCULAR NO. 113, BUREAU OF PLANT INDUSTRY. 



FIRST APPEARANCE OF PURPLE FOLIAGE. 



Seed of the crop of 1911 in Kentucky was planted at Washing- 

 ton, D. C, in 1912 and 60 well-developed pistillate plants and 46 

 staminate plants were produced. Two of the pistillate plants had 

 purple foliage, strikingly different from the normal dark-green color 

 of all others. One of these was the third best plant in the plat, and 

 the other was above the average. The seed of the best purple plant 

 was saved by itself. It is of a brownish color, easily distinguished 

 from the normal gray of the other seeds, and it is larger in size than 

 the others. 



Sometimes the wild hemp from bird seed has foliage with a copper- 

 colored hue, and in 1901 a small plat of hemp from imported Hun- 

 garian seed had several plants with copper-colored foliage, but none 

 of these had the deep, rich purple color of the two marked plants 

 in this seed plat of 1912. This is a singular mutation, showing 

 strongly marked color variation hi foliage and seed, arising from a 

 closely inbred strain of a uniform group of plants. 



ICir. 113] 



