1915] The Ottawa Naturalist. 139 



growing together and are moreover visited by various insects, 

 particularly bees, it must naturally be supposed that they are 

 readily cross-fertilized. It is, therefore, interesting to know 

 that this crossing does not apparently affect the colour of the 

 seeds on individual plants, which are still either all yellow or all 

 greenish. 



No attempt has been made to breed the plants to ascertain 

 whether the resulting seeds confirm to the ustial Mendelian law, 

 when yellow and green producing seed plants are crossed, 

 though doubtless this is the case. 



Norman Criddle. 



MEETING OF THE BOTANICAL BRANCH. 



Held December 19th, at the home of Mr. G. H. Clark, 

 501 O'Connor Street. Dr. M. O. Malte had charge of the meeting 

 and exhibited many fine specimens of Canadian grasses, a col- 

 lection of which he is preparing for exhibition at the Panama- 

 Pacific Exhibition at San Francisco in 1915. 



The remarks of Dr. Malte dealt with "Climatic and Soil 

 Conditions as they influence Plant Life. " Many of the speci- 

 mens which he exhibited demonstrated in a very forceful manner 

 how extremely powerful such influences are. It was stated that 

 during the four months of collecting during the past summer he 

 had brought together about two hundred distinct species of 

 grasses. Of these about one hundred and seventy were native 

 to Canada. The other thirty odd were probably originally 

 imported from Etirope, but could be now found wild in many 

 places in Canada. These European grasses, he stated, did 

 exceptionally well in the coastal regions, such as those of Nova 

 Scotia and British Columbia. In this connection, he exhibited 

 and discussed the awnless Italian Rye grass of which about 

 fifty distinct forms could be found. Such forms being to a 

 large extent the result of climatic and soil conditions. More- 

 over, the influence of such conditions also accotmted for the fact 

 that while this particular grass tC^as an annual at Ottawa, in 

 other parts of the Dominion it took on a biennial form, while in 

 British Columbia, it became a true perennial. His remarks in 

 this connection, that is, as to why a plant changed its seasonal 

 habits, provoked some interesting remarks from other members 

 of the club, who held different opinions on this point. This 

 grass, he said, had been known to yield as high as eighteen tons 

 to the acre, where the area it occupied had been irrigated by 

 flooding it from a city sewerage system. 



An interesting fact mentioned was, that out of the two 



