734 EXPERIMENT STATION RECORD. 



phate, superphosphate, and Thomas slag to better advantage than lupines. 

 Phosphate rock seemed to be an equally good source for both oats and lupines, 

 but bone meal seemed to furnish phosphoric acid to the lupines better than to 

 the oats. Although oats apparently use more water than lupines, the appropria- 

 tions of phosphorus by the plants could not be explained on that basis. The 

 fact that the more difficultly soluble compounds were more readily used by the 

 lupines seemed to indicate that the acids of the root sap played an important 

 part in the assimilation. Applications of ammonium nitrate did not cause an 

 increase in the phosphoric acid with the lupines, while the reverse was true 

 with the oats. 



Report of assistant botanist, J. Belling { Florida Sta. Rpt. 1913, pp. CIV- 

 CXXXI, figs. S). — This reports work in continuation of that previously noted 

 (B. S. R., 29, p. 228) on the selection of useful beans from the cross of Florida 

 Velvet (Stizolohiiim dceriugianum) and Lyon (8. nivemn). Three selected 

 constant strains are described, followed by discussions of precautious in breed- 

 ing work, and general sources of error. 



In a study of the inheritance of purple color four distinct parts of the plant 

 are considered. On the lower epidermis of the first pair of apparently simple 

 leaves ; on the stem as a mark on the leaf axil ; in the wings of the flower and 

 to a less degree, in the standard ; and on stems and petioles, on the sides exposed 

 to sunlight. In several generations the purple and noupurple colors were found 

 to mendelize. 



In regard to time of flowering it is noted that " a definite proof of segrega- 

 tion of some kind having occurred is found in the raising of constant strains of 

 different degrees of earliness in Fs and later generations. I have, in Fb of the 

 cross of the Florida Velvet by Lyon, several strains constant in flowering period, 

 of which: (A) one flowers two months before the Florida Velvet or Lyon 

 beans; (B) another flowers one month before; (C) a third flowers a week or 

 two weeks before; while (D) a fourth flowers with the Florida Velvet bean; 

 and (E) a fifth was over a mouth later in F3 than the Florida Velvet or the 

 Lyon bean. These strains (except the last) have been grown on a field scale 

 in Fb, and have proved uniformly constant to time of flowering. As only one 

 F2 plant later than the Velvet bean has been multiplied in Fs (except in the 

 elimination field), we might perhaps expect several constant grades of later 

 plants also. The black plants (with black tomentum all over) which segregate 

 in normal Mendelian manner, and from three-sixteenths of F2, are always 

 later than the corresponding white plants (with white pubescence) in the Fs 

 families In which they occur In the normal proportion of three white to one 

 black. Hence I regard the isolation of these five races constant to different 

 degrees of earliness as a proof of the segregation of genetic factors affecting 

 earliness and lateness in the microspores and megaspores of the Fi hybrids." 

 It was found that " the time of first flowering is in most cases a reliable indi- 

 cation of the climax of flowering and of the time of ripening pods." 



A study of earliness and size of plant showed a strong correlation between 

 time of flowering and size of plant, especially for the white plants, and purple 

 plants with white shoots were slightly earlier than the nonpurple. 



In regard to flower bunches the number of flower clusters (nodes) on a 

 raceme is determined for any plant by the time of flowering (that Is, indirectly 

 by the factors for late flowering), and, independently of the time of flowering, 

 by the presence or absence of a genetic factor. There was evidently a strong 

 correlation between lateness of flowering and Increased length of flower 

 bunches. 



Progress in crossing several varieties of corn is noted. 



