112 BOTANICAL GAZETTE [FEBRUARY 



1 have some material now in hand which meets this requirement, 

 but have not yet continued the experiments long enough to allow 

 more than a preliminary report upon its behavior. For several 

 years I have been investigating the sex ratios in Lychnis dioica L., 

 and for this purpose have made carefully controlled pollinations 

 yearly in this usually dioecious species. It was my good fortune 

 during the summer of 1908 to find among these pure-bred cultures 

 six hermaphrodite individuals, the first which I had seen in the 

 several years during which I had been working with this species, in 

 which time I had examined some 8000 pedigreed individuals. In 

 the past season I have noted eight hermaphrodites, usually more or 

 less imperfect, in pure-bred normal families including a total of 

 10,320 individuals. Only two of these eight were well developed 

 and appeared to be fully functional both as males and females. 



Although the occasional occurrence of hermaphrodite individuals 

 in this species has been frequently noted, 2 I have never seen any 

 of them growing wild in the vicinity of Cold Spring Harbor, where the 

 original material for my cultures was collected. STRASBURGER 

 (n) found that hermaphrodite plants in his cultures at Bonn were 

 invariably affected by a smut, Ustilago violacea, which fruits in the 

 anthers, and he ventured the suggestion that all the reported hermaph- 

 rodites in this species may have been such diseased individuals; 

 but, fortunately for my experiments, Ustilago violacea has never 

 appeared among my Lychnis cultures, and some, at least, of the 

 hermaphrodite individuals were capable of functioning both as 

 males and females. Five of the hermaphrodites found in 1908 were 

 members of a single family (0739). Several of these hermaphrodite 

 mutants did not have the ovaries and pistils fully developed, and 

 consequently my ability to secure offspring from them was somewhat 

 limited. However, during the past summer, I had 13 families in 

 which one of these hermaphrodite plants entered as either the male 

 or female parent. Two of the six original hermaphrodites died 

 before I had opportunity to use them in crossing. Of the remaining 

 four, two were successfully self fertilized, and one of these was also 

 successfully used as a mother in crosses with a normal male. 



2 See PEXZIG, O., Pflanzenteratologie 1:300; and KNUTH, P., Handbuch der 

 Blutenbiologie - 2i:i74, 175. 



