MEMOIRS OF THE NEW YORK BOTANICAI. GARDEN. 269 



of species examined failed to produce flowers or special reproductive 

 bodies of any kind, either sexual or asexual, in darkness. A con- 

 sideration of the facts described however, should take into account 

 that in the processes entailed in the formation of flowers, seeds and 

 spores, temperatures and nutrition must be adjusted even more deli- 

 cately than for the vegetative processes, so that many of the plants 

 examined might have developed flowers or sporophylls at higher or 

 lower temperatures approximating their specific maxima. The only 

 species which produced flowers which in a measure were approxi- 

 mately similar to the normal were the following, viz. : Amaryllis {^. 

 40), Amorphophallus (p. 40), Arisaenia (pp. 48 and 50), Hypopiiys 

 (p. 119), Hydrastis (p. 117), Podophyllum (p. 150) and Trillium (pp. 

 181 and 182), in which the flowers including the pistils and stamens 

 were laid in their definitive form during the previous vegetative sea- 

 son, and their growth consisted chiefl}' in an enlargement of the tis- 

 sues and parts already formed. Thus it is notable that Arisaema 

 did not produce flowers in the second season of its etiolation although 

 furnished with sufficient reserve to enable it to send up leaves for two 

 seasons following. An interesting reaction by Arisaema was seen 

 in the formation of a second scape and flower on an etiolated plant 

 brought into light (p. 60.) In no instance, except in Hypopitys, were 

 seeds formed in the etiolated cultures. Pollination was effected me- 

 chanically, but no demonstration could be made as to whether actual 

 fertilization ensued or not. Likewise no mature and functional 

 spores were produced b}- any of the ferns which were cultivated in the 

 dark chamber. So far as could be learned the flowers of Hypopitys 

 carried on their activity in the usual manner, it being the only species 

 which produced seeds when grown in complete darkness, but the 

 difficulty of securing germinations made it impossible to apply the 

 final test to the perfectness of the seeds. The inflorescences of 

 Aplectrum, JVarcissus^ Tritelia [Alilla), and others did not emerge 

 from the sheathing scales. The peduncles and scapes were gener- 

 ally elongated beyond the normal, although this was not the case 

 in Trillium and Hydrastis. The members of the floral envelope 

 were generally smaller than in the normal, the corolla being 

 wholly undeveloped in a test made with Salvia in which an entire 

 plant was placed in a dark chamber after the flowering branch had 

 been formed. The non-green colors were developed in a manner 

 fairly similar to the normal, but the absence of chlorophyl and the 



