PART I. MORPHOLOGICAL CONSIDERATIONS. 

 (1) Early stages of seedlings and sprouted cuttings. 



Before proceeding to the description of branching in the sugarcane, it 

 will be advisable to get some idea as to the various stages by which the plant, 

 as we see it, is built up. For this purpose, I have put together observations 

 and drawings, which have been made at different times during the past five 

 years, on the germination of the cane seed and the sprouting of the sets, as 

 these will form a useful basis for our study. 



The seed of the sugarcane is extremely minute, the average length being 

 1-5 mm. and its breadth one-third of that amount. Strictly speaking, it is not 

 merely a seed, but a fruit or caryopsis, for, as in all grasses, there is only one 

 seed in the ovary, and its walls are fused with those of the fruit to an indistin- 

 guishable mass. The embryonic plant lies obliquely across one end of the seed, 

 the rest being taken up by a mass of starch-bearing cells, the endosperm, a 

 reserve of food for the early stages of growth. On comparing the relative 

 sizes of germ and endosperm, the sugarcane appears to be poorly equipped 

 with the latter, as, before the young plant protrudes from the seed-coats, it 

 occupies in the vertical section nearly half of the space available. Considering 

 the small size of the seed itself, there is thus very little food laid by for the 

 initial stages of growth before it becomes independent ; the cane seedling is 

 excessively small and its growth is not nearly so rapid as the cultivated grains 

 and, indeed, as the grass weeds which infest the seedling pans. The sugarcane 

 in fact reminds us of the proverbial " mustard seed" in the smallness of its 

 seed and the comparatively enormous size of the full grown plant. As a 

 natural result of this, the seed of the sugarcane cannot be kept for long, although 

 our series of observations, carried on for some years, show that its vitality is 

 greater than previously supposed, and is not the same in all varieties (Mem. 

 II, p. 127). 



The general course of development may be gathered from the accompany- 

 ing figures, firstly, of microtome sections through resting and germinating seeds 

 (PL III), and, secondly, of drawings made from outside (Pis. IV, V and VI). 



