. 



[Reprinted from SCIENCE, N. S.,Vol. XXXVI., No. 

 9S8, Pages 48Z-48S, October 11, 191t] 



HERMAPHRODITE FEMALES IN LYCHNIS DIOICA 



SOME years ago Strasburger 1 reported that 

 female specimens of Melandrium rubrum 

 Garcke (a form of Lychnis dioica L.) growing 

 in his experimental garden at Bonn, were 

 changed to apparent hermaphrodites as a 

 result of infection with the anther-smut, 

 Ustilago violacea. The infected plants had 

 fully developed stamens, but the sporogenous 

 tissue of the anthers was completely replaced 

 by the spores of the smut. Strasburger sug- 

 gested that all the cases of hermaphroditism 

 which had been occasionally reported in this 

 species were probably due to infection by 

 Ustilago. 



When I discovered functional hermaphro- 

 dite mutants in Lychnis dioica and demon- 

 strated by numerous genetic experiments 2 that 

 these functional hermaphrodites are modified 

 males, I believed that Strasburger had misin- 

 terpreted his material and that his hermaph- 

 rodites which resulted from infection by 

 Ustilago were produced by the development of 

 female organs in the male, and not as he sup- 

 posed by the development of male organs in the 

 female. Strasburger was correct, however, as 

 to the nature of his apparent hermaphrodites, 

 as demonstrated by two facts which he has re- 

 cently pointed out, 8 namely, (a) that the fe- 

 males are not always completely infected, in 

 which case the uninfected branches bear nor- 

 mal female flowers, and (&) that infected 



1 Biologisches Centralblatt, XX., 657 et seq., 

 1900. 



* Botanical Gazette, XLIX., 110, 1910. 



*Jahrbuch fur wissenschaftlichen Botanilc, 

 XLVIIL, 427, 1910. 



