THE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY OF NEW YORK 



dead or dying and blackened tissue was visible at the base of the 

 flower. The stamens and pistils in many such flowers were still 

 somewhat alive toward the apex, but in many the death of all 

 flower parts was complete. The flowers had apparently developed 

 quite fully for that time of the year and the rest of the bulb in 

 many cases seemed to be sound. Careful examination failed to 

 reveal the presence of fungi or bacteria. The appearance of 

 such bulbs in longitudinal section is shown in Nos. 23 and 24. 

 Such bulbs will fail to bloom in a following spring. They may 

 produce stem-leaves, however, and may form new bulbs from 

 lateral buds which will bloom excellently in the next following 

 year (see report in August Journal). 



It is very evident that the death of flowers in these particular 

 bulbs occurred late during the period of storage. It is difficult, 

 however, definitely to determine the cause. They were kept 

 under the same conditions as were bulbs of other varieties in 

 which no blindness was discovered. The death of tissue first 

 occurs at the base of the flower and may involve also more or less 

 of the stem itself with one or more of its leaves (see Plate 37 

 in the August Jounml). Undoubtedly the immediate causes are 

 physiological. They may be connected with conditions of storage 

 or more remotely with the condition of bulbs when placed in 

 storage. This particular variety was one in which there had been 

 in the previous spring considerable abnormal growth in the de- 

 velopment of green leaves from the first bulbs. It was these 

 bulbs in which blindness developed during storage. As a rule 

 bulbs that make abnormal growth of leaves are reduced in weight. 

 They evidently contribute more to the growth of the leaf than 

 they receive from the leaf. Their supply of food is somewhat 

 ' depleted. This is especially so in extreme cases (La Triumphante 

 discussed above) in which the death of the entire bulb during 

 storage was the rule. All this suggests that the abnormal develop- 

 ment of a green leaf from first bulbs as seen in Margaret in 

 the spring of 1917 may be a condition associated with the later 

 appearance of blindness. 



It is a simple matter to discover blindness which develops in stor- 

 age. If sections through sample bulbs selected at random show it 

 is present in a considerable proportion of bulbs, the entire stock 



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