338 BOTANICAL GAZETTE [May 
above by the cotyledons and next year’s bud; below by the 
primary root which is large, stout, and branched. At the end of 
the first year the stem bud is set free underground by the wither- 
ing of the cotyledons, and in the following spring it throws up a 
single green member and adds a few very short internodes—sep- 
arated by scale leaves—to the squat vertical axis underground. 
This axis is again terminated by a bud which will develop in the 
third season. 
The plant continues to grow in this fashion for several 
seasons. Each year’s period of activity adds a few very short 
internodes to the vertical subterranean axis and produces several 
scale leaves, together with one or two foliage leaves. At the end 
of four or five years a season comes in which the terminal bud 
remains dormant. The bud which develops is found at the end 
of a horizontal rhizome produced in the previous season from 
the axil of a scale leaf; it resembles the terminal bud in struc- 
ture and in the leaves it bears. The flower-bearing stem arises 
from the axil of one of the upper leaves of such a bud. 
The bundles of the flower-bearing stem and of the vertical 
axis are arranged in the scattered fashion characteristic of mono- 
cotyledons. The whole structure of the plant indicates that this 
is primarily due to the number of leaf traces entering an axis so 
greatly reduced in length. Within the lateral rhizome—which 
possesses elongated internodes and bears small scale leaves— 
the bundles are arranged in a single circle. The number of 
traces entering the axis from a single foliage leaf is indicated in - 
jigs. 6 and 7 (Holm, 7. c., pp. 425-6). Cambial layers exist 
within each bundle, but the bundle sheaths are thick-walled, 
and there is no interfascicular cambium. 
Thus in Podophyllum partially united cotyledons and a close 
approach to monocotyledonous stem anatomy are found in con- 
nection with the geophilous habit. The genus must be fairly 
ancient, as indicated by its rather isolated systematic position 
and the distribution of its species. Four are included in the 
Index Kewensis. One is found in the Himalayas, two in China, 
and the fourth in North America. Possibly it reproduces some 
of the characters found in an ancestor which had become some- 
