Coleiis blumei Benth 395 



shoot resulted from the treatment (details in Jacobs and Bullwinkel, 

 1953). 



Faster Flowering Results from Excising Axillary Shoots 



Accompanying the compensatory growth that resulted from this 

 treatment was a striking and significant increase in the speed of flower- 

 ing (Table I and Fig. 1 ). Similar results were obtained in each of the 



Table I. Effects of Photoperiod and Axillary Excision on Number of Coleiis blumei 

 Plants Which Show Flowering after Given Time" 



Flowering 

 Not flowering 



Flowering 

 Not flowering 



SD "LD"* SD "LD' 



" Adjusted x^ test shows highly significant difference between controls and axillaries-off, 

 no significant difference between short-day and long-day treatments. 

 * "LD" signifies interrupted-night treatments. 



five experiments in which speed of flowering was compared in axil- 

 laries-off and control plants. 



Under our usual greenhouse conditions, plants of our clone of Coleus 

 blumei would flower fairly soon after they reached a stage of large- 

 leaved, luxuriant growth which was recognizable by casual inspection. 

 For the five experiments cited above, plants were selected which were 

 obviously smaller than this ready-to-flower stage, i.e., the plants had 

 been through fewer plastochrones. In four other experiments, how- 

 ever, we used only the larger plants. Results of a typical experiment 

 are shown in Fig. 2. There is no significant difference in speed of 

 flowering between axillaries-off plants and the intact controls, although 

 the compensatory growth effect is as pronounced as ever. (Naturally, 

 the time to flowering is much less than with plants which are initially 

 smaller. ) 



