E. S. Salmon and H. Wormald 245 



It will be seen that, in general, the period covered by the " time of 

 flowering" of the plants collectively is from the end of July to the 

 beginning of September. The Table shows too that the seasonal fluctua- 

 tions exhibited by the individual seedlings do not disguise the fact that 

 certain plants can be characterized as "early," "midseason" or "late" 

 forms. These terms do not denote distinct divisions but they may be used 

 for convenience in placing representative types which are connected by 

 other forms, the whole constituting a series in gradual sequence from 

 the typically " early " to the typically " late " plants. The three plants 

 at the head of the Table, however, appear to form a distinct class as 

 compared with the rest of the plants which came under our purview ; 

 not only have they been consistently early flowering, but, as will be 

 shown later, they have other characters in common. 



The influence of the weather on the time of flowering is brought out 

 in the dates under 1920. The abnormally warm weather during the 

 early part of the growing season induced the " very early " plants to 

 come into flower even earlier than usual, but, owing to comparatively 

 low temperatures which subsequently obtained, the flowering of the rest 

 was delayed and this made them later than in previous years. 



The female plants were collectively later than the male plants, the 

 earliest of them, even in favourable years, did not show the " brush " 

 before the middle of August. It was found too that the range of varia- 

 tion in their time of flowering was less notwithstanding the fact that 

 the female plants which came under observation were more numerous 

 than the male plants^; nevertheless plants could be distinguished which 

 were invariably earlier or later than the average as shown in the Table 



below : 



Time of Flowering of certain Female Plants^. 



1 The number of the $ seedlings was 238, of the ^ 157. 



' It is to be noted, particularly with regard to the ^ plants, that the terms "early," 

 '■ midseason " and "late " as used in this paper are employed for comparing the wild hop 

 seedling plants among themselves and do not indicate their time of flowering relative to 

 the varieties of the hop under cultivation. 



