1907] BRIEFER ARTICLES 207 
They have been described, to avoid ambiguity, without qualification and 
without considering the variations and exceptions that arise from the 
complex influences, internal and external, temporary or permanent, that 
may modify the development of the annual growth. As a matter of fact, 
while the characters under consideration may be potential in a species, they 
are not always invariable or consistent. 
A multinodal shoot, at the lateral nodes, may put out conelets or branch- 
lets or both; either may be absent or be represented by a bud which may 
or may not develop the following year; or there may be nothing whatever 
to indicate the lateral node except the leafless base of the internode beyond. 
Again, the winter bud is an incipient branchlet, the beginnings of a growth 
to be continued in the spring; the degree to which the bud is developed, 
at the end of the summer, is subject to the vicissitudes of all growth. The 
bud destined to produce a multinodal shoot may be so far advanced as to 
show its purpose at a glance, or its future development may be latent and 
concealed to a greater or less degree. Multinodal pines often produce uni- 
nodal shoots, and this apparent inconsistency becomes more frequent with 
increasing age, so that individuals of P. rigida, and allied species, may be 
found which are nearly or absolutely uninodal. Uninodal pines, on the 
contrary, are more constant. The summer shoot, however, may occur on 
any species, and may show in autumn various degrees of development 
which may amount to no more than a slight elongation of the bud or may 
form a conspicuous tuft of leaves on the end of the branchlet. From its 
very nature the summer shoot must be regarded as evidence of local or 
temporary vigor rather than as a specific character, and this is true even 
of those pines where the development of the summer shoot has almost 
diagnostic value. P. Bungeana and P. Gerardiana are credited by authors 
with “‘lateral cones” on account of the persistency of this summer growth; 
but specimens in the herbaria at Kew, Paris, and the Arnold Arboretum 
show conclusively that their pseudo-lateral conelets partly or completely 
disappear in mature trees. 
Taking the genus as a whole, there seems to be every gradation between 
the two extremes, the conelet exclusively lateral and the conelet exclusively 
subterminal. These considerations point to the conclusion that the differ- 
ence implied in the “‘subterminal and lateral cones” of authors is one of 
degree rather than of kind, and however valuable the lateral conelet may 
be, when it is present, for the determination of species, it is not available, 
on account of its inconstancy, for broader classifications. It is therefore 
evident that a herbarium specimen, so far as it shows these characters, 
may not represent the normal behavior of a species, and such a specimen 
