129 



They are easily grown and are ver}' decorative objects. In warm 

 regions species of Cycas and Zamia ore used in out-of-door plant- 

 ings. In conservatories in the cooler latitudes all the genera may 

 often be found in a thriving condition and perfectly adapted, ap- 

 parently, to their artificial habitats. In this way, again the cycads 

 parallel the palms ; and likewise, both primitive people and some 

 of our contemporaries in their spiritual cravings consider the 

 cycad a symbol, both of Life and of Death. 



John K. Small. 



FURTHER NOTES ON THE FLOWERS AND SEEDS OF 



SWEET POTATOES 



As ordinarily grown, sweet potatoes are most decidedly sterile 

 in respect to the production of capsules and seeds. The two main 

 conditions responsible for this unf ruitfulness are ( i ) the habit of 

 non-blooming, especially throughout the more northern areas of 

 their culture, and (2) the failure, even when blooming profusely, 

 to set seed either to self-pollination or to pollination between 

 plants of the same clonal variety. It should be noted that the 

 various plants of the variety are all propagated from branches of 

 one original seedling and that hence pollination between plants of 

 the variety is the same as pollination between flowers on a single 

 plant. 



In a number of instances, however, seeds of sweet potatoes 

 have been obtained and the breeding for new varieties from seed 

 has been possible. The summary of these cases and the data 

 bearing on the blooming and seeding habits of sweet potatoes 

 were assembled from published records and from a rather ex- 

 tensive correspondence and published in considerable detail.^ 

 Since this report appeared further data have come to hand and 

 also fruit and seeds have been obtained in controlled pollinations 



ern coast, and locally in hammocks southward in the peninsula. 

 Plants on the shell mounds often have branching' stems. This 

 hammock inhabitant differs from the pineland-inhabiting species 

 - — Zamia integrifolia — in the more numerously veined, wider, and 

 more remote leaflets, and the flattened nut-like part of the seed. 



^ The Flowers and Seed of Sweet Potatoes. Journal of The New York 

 Botanical Garden 25: 153-168. Tune, iQi4- 



