118 THE JOURNAL OF INDIAN BOTANY. 



As regards the position of the abnormal shoots on the plant no 

 special relationship could be found. They occurred scattered on the 

 plant. This point is also referred to take on in the paper. 



The length of the needles of the abnormal shoots was also 

 measured but no special relationship with the length of the needles 

 of the normal shoots could be made out. 



It will be seen from what has been described before that 4-leaved 

 spurs are by far the most common of abnormal shoots in the seedlings 

 of Pinus longifolia forming as they do 83'8 % of the whole lot of 

 abnormal shoots. The actual numbers observed in one hundred plants 

 were 145 out of 173. The numbers of 2-leaved and 5-leaved shoots 

 were 17 and 11 respectively. (The normal number of leaves in the 

 dwarf shoot is three and according to the observations of the writer 

 variations in the adult plants is extremely rare.) The seedlings show 

 therefore that a very great majority of abnormal shoots possess a larger 

 number of leaves than the normal shoots. This is contrary to the 

 observations of Thomson who says (Bot. Gaz., May, 1914) : — " It is 

 more usual to find the spurs poorly developed when they first appear 

 on the seedling .... This feature shows itself especially in 

 species which have normally more than two leaves in the mature 

 condition." Out of the 57 plants with abnormal shoots only two 

 possessed 2-leaved abnormal shoots only, and ten more which possessed 

 2-leaved shoots in addition to other forms of abnormal shoots did not 

 show that the 2-leaved shoots were in 6very case the first formed 

 abnormal shoots. In one the only 2-leaved shoots present was near 

 the top above some other abnormal shoots, but in the other nine the 

 shoots were near the base. 



The writer is however in perfect agreement with the conclusion 

 arrived at by Thomson when he says :" The lack of definiteness in the 

 number of leaves in a fascicle, and the occurrence of supernumerary 

 needles in the recognised primitive region and after wounding, are 

 evidence of the branch character of the spur of the pines." He 

 points out also that the normal proliferation of the spur in the seed- 

 ling and young plant into an ordinary branch with both primordial 

 and fascicled leaves, and the traumatic revival of this condition in the 

 mature tree place this conclusion beyond reasonable doubt, strength- 

 ened as it is by the normal occurrence of the spirally arranged leaves 

 in the seedling and other facts. 



According to this view it would also appear that species of pine 

 possessing a smaller number of leaves in their spurs are more specia- 

 lised than the others and the tendency has been towards forming 

 spurs with fewer and fewer leaves. This conclusion is also supported 

 by the facts reported by Boodle (New Phytologist, 1915) : — " In 



