214 The Irish Naturalist. becember, 



Rina Scott and Ethel Sargant, " On the development of 

 Arum maculatum trom the seed," which appeared m the 

 Annals of Botany in 1898 (vol. xii., 399) ; the second. 

 an article in Dr. Kirchner's Lebcnsgcschichtc dcr Bliitoi- 

 pfianzen Mittclcuropas, pnblished in 1909 (Band i., Abtheil. 

 3), and giving a full and interesting resume of the result of 

 observations made previously to that 3^ear. 



In one of the foot-notes to the hrst of these jjapers the 

 authors state that in England the Arum seeds ripen in July 

 and germinate in autumn, yet a study of the text seems to 

 show that seeds from Devonshire plants sown b\- them in 

 July, 1895, did not germinate until early in the ibllowing 

 January, while the first leaf did not appear above ground 

 until the spring of 1897, u^" some 19 months after the sowing 

 of the seed. In the Lebensgcschichte a summary is gi\-en of 

 the results obtained by Irmisch with plants grown in 

 Germany, where the fruit matures in September, as it usually 

 does in Ireland. These results agree rather closely with 

 those obtained by Scott and Sargant with Devonshire plants. 

 German seeds sown as soon as ripe were found by Irmisch 

 to germinate, as a rule, in the following spring, while the 

 first leaf appeared over ground, as a rule, in the third year 

 after sowing. In exceptional cases, however, he obserxed 

 the first appearance of the leaf to take place in the autumn 

 of the second year, as occurred with the Irish seeds sown b\' 

 me in September, 1909. 



In exploring the literature of this ver\- interesting species 

 a curious lack of unanimity came to light in the \'iews of 

 different authorities as to the number of seeds produced by 

 the fruit or berrj'. In Smith's English Flora, 2nd Ed. 1830, 

 and in Withering's Arrangement, 4th Ed. 1837, ^^^^ fruit is 

 set down as containing " several seeds " ; Ray {Synopsis, 

 3rd Ed., 1724) and Haller {Hist. Stirp. Indig. Helvetiac, 

 1768) both give the number of seeds as i or 2 ; Hooker's 

 Stitdenfs Flora, 3rd Ed. 1884, has seeds 2 or 3 ; Babington's 

 Manual, 9th lid. 1904, *' seeds mostly 4 or 3 or rarely 2 " : 

 and finalty, not to pile u]) discordant authorities, ScopoH in 

 his Flora Carinthiaca, 1760, fixes the number of seeds at 2. 

 This unexpected diversity of opinion induced me to examine 

 for myself a large series of Irish Arum spadices in \arious 



