Cultivated Elementary Species 69 



lar strands; the larger the first and the 

 smaller the latter, the greater is, as a rule, the 

 average amount of sugar of the race. Through 

 the kindness of the late Mr. Rimpau, a well- 

 known German breeder of sugar-beet varieties, 

 I obtained specimens from seed of a native wild 

 locality near Bukharest. The plants produced 

 quite woody roots, showing almost no sugar- 

 tissue at all. Woody layers of strongly de- 

 veloped fibrovascular strands were seen to be 

 separated one from another only by very thin 

 layers of parenchymatous cells. Even the 

 number of layers is variable ; it was observed to 

 be five in my plants ; but in larger roots double 

 this number and even more may easily be met 

 with. 



Some authors have distinguished specific 

 types among these wild forms. While the 

 cultivated beets are collected under the head of 

 Beta vulgaris, separate types with more or less 

 woody roots have been described as Beta mari- 

 tima and Beta patula. These show differences 

 in the habit of the stems and the foliage. Some 

 have a strong tendency to become annual, 

 others to become biennial. The first of course 

 do not store a large quantity of food in their 

 roots, and remain thin, even at the time of flow- 

 ering. The biennial types occur in all sizes of 

 roots. In the annuals the stems may vary from 



