414 XEW JEESEY AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE 



The eggplant, as representing a slow-growing type of bushy plant, 

 was employed for the tests in question, and it was found that they 

 behaved in a manner similar to the radish, in that the petioles became 

 ridged and nearly upright, and bore the thick, almost fleshy, much-en- 

 larged oblanceolate blades well up in the air and sunshine. In this 

 form the deplumuled plants will stand still, in a very liberal sense of. 

 that term, for an indefinite time — not weeks, but long months. 



The last type of plant to be considered is represented here by the 

 common sunflower (Helianthiis annuus L.). As with the other types, 

 the plants in alternate rows were deplumuled. The first change wa> 

 quickly observed, namely, in the enlargement of the cotyledons, but 

 here the most noticeable thing observed was the elongation of the hy- 

 pocotyle, which finally reached fully nine inches or double that of the 

 normal plants. There is a greater tendency for pypocotyl'edonary 

 growth in the sunflower than any other of the tvpes named, and this 

 was remarkably accentuated in the mutilated plant. The structure of 

 this stem, even at the end of three months, retained, generally, the 

 primitive structure it possessed as a young seedling — that is, for ex- 

 ample, the wood zone was made of a series of stout bundles, evenly 

 disposed, without the filling in and completion of the thick ring of 

 zylen, so well demonstrated in the normal plant at the same age. See 

 4, Plate IX. 



The experiments illustrate how an organ normally designed to store 

 food for the developing seedling may persist, in case of an emergenc}', 

 and take on a greatly increased size for that purpose. The petiole 

 may assume a direction in connection to its enlargement that will aid 

 the blade in its work of photo-synthesis. Along with these changes in 

 the seed leaves there may be others in surrounding parts, particularly 

 the hj-pocotyle when it l^ecomes thickened, remarkably, and green in 

 the morning-glory and greatly elongated, but slender in the sunflower. 

 In case of the radish, a place for any surplus growth is provided for 

 in the root naturally destined to be fleshy, and the hypocotjde is not 

 modified. 



Perhaps the greatest surprise is the length of time a plant will 

 hold out when it is deprived of the means for making a successful 

 struggle for life and all possibility of reproduction. 



