miscellaneous: experimental teratosis 597 



repotted July 25, many with root-woundings. Each one re- 

 sponded to the shock and most of them (all but two) very 

 strikingly (see Figs. 437, 438, 4395, 440, 443, 444 and second 

 part of Table II). It was, in fact, the response of these plants 

 to the original drying of the cuttings in December, 1917, and 

 to April and May pottings which had given me a clue to the 

 cause of the proliferation. Unfortunately for completeness 

 sake, it did not occur to me to make Table II until I had ex- 

 amined and thrown away a number of the plants without count- 

 ing their many proliferations. 



21. In another experiment (Series III, begun after the con- 

 clusion of Series I and II because the results were so astonishing 

 that I wished additional confirmation) I made use of 29 plants. 

 The principal dates are as follows: 



July 12, 1918, cuttings made and left on the bench in dry 

 air for three days. 



July 15. Cuttings bedded in sand to root and watered 

 sparingly. 



August 6. Plants set into 4-inch pots. 



September — . Plants set into 6-inch pots. 



November 12. Plants shifted to 8-inch pots where they re- 

 mained undisturbed until the close of the experiment. 



March 15, 1919. Experiment closed and plants used for 

 other purposes. 



Results: The history of these plants, in which the prolifera- 

 tions also occurred in the summer and autumn, not in the winter 

 or spring, is as startling as that of Series I and II. During the 

 first four months, in which the plants were subject to repeated 

 loss of water, from the initial drying and from the root-disturb- 

 ances due to three pottings, each one of these 29 plants pro- 

 liferated enormously on a great many leaves and internodes 

 (Fig. 445). In fact, most of the leaves and internodes, exclusive 

 of those which were large when the cuttings were made, prolif- 

 erated and many of them bore hundreds of shoots. On the 



an embryonic, stipule-wrapped leaf on July 24. Proliferous petiole at left. Most 

 of the 1760 shoots are from the petiole and the vicinity of the midribs. The leaves 

 above and below this leaf were comparatively free from shoots. Photographed 

 September 27, 1918. About ^i nat. size. 



