212 The I)i>h Naiiiralist. December, 



the peculiar life-history of the species, I assumed that all 

 of the seeds had rotted away ; and so the flower-pot was 

 laid aside and the experiment set down as a failure. 



After the lapse of another three months it occurred to me 

 that I might have too hastily assumed that all the seeds had 

 perished, so on the ist October, 1910, I carefully stirred up 

 the soil in the pot and was surprised to iind seven well- 

 developed tubers about the size of an ordinary Sweet -Pea 

 seed. From the crown of each tuber proceeded a shoot of 

 about half an inch long, sheathed below and showing at the 

 summit a faintly green leaf -tip. The seed-shells and primary 

 germination-shoots or cotyledons had all disappeared. The 

 radicle, too, was gone, only the faintest vestige of its old 

 attachment showing as a slight scar at the base of the young 

 tubers, but a few nascent roots appeared near the crown of 

 the tubers. After examination, the tubers were immediately 

 re-planted ; the soil was kept well watered and, finally, on 

 the I2th October, 1910, precisely 13 months and 6 days after 

 the sowing of the seed, the first leaf-shoot appeared above 

 ground. 



The other leaf-shoots made their appearance in fairly 

 rapid succession. By the 23rd October, seven shoots were 

 over ground, by the 4th November, eight, by the 6th Nov- 

 ember, nine, by the nth, ten, and, finally, on the 22nd 

 February of the present year, 1911, the last or eleventh shoot 

 made its appearance. The slow evolution of the closely 

 furled leaves was watched with interest, and at last, on the 

 30th October, 1910, a distinct brown blotch was made out 

 on the back of the leaf which had first appeared above 

 ground. A second blotched leaf was observed on November 

 4th, a third on December 15th, a fourth about the middle 

 of January, 191 1, and a fifth on the following 22nd February. 

 By this time several of the young plants had grown to a 

 height of an inch and a half, and two of them to fully two 

 inches, with elliptic acuminate leaves one inch long and 

 showing no trace of a basal sinus. The pseudo-blisters stood 

 out prominently on the backs of the blotched-leaved plants 

 and corresponded accurately with the outline of the blotch- 

 ings, which were usually large and oblong, measuring almost 

 \ inch, save in one leaf where they were hardly one-sixteenth 



