BRIEFER ARTICLES. 
MEISSNER ON EVERGREEN NEEDLES. 
(WITH ONE FIGURE) 
A RECENT double number of the Botanische Zeitung” is devoted to 
a third treatise by Meissner on evergreen needles. This time the 
theme is chiefly the relation of the length of stem and needle, in sup- 
port of his previous attack on the idea advanced by Kraus,* and sup- 
ported by myself,3 that the thrifty growth of stem and leaf may be 
expected to occur together. Part I of Meissner’s paper contains in 
tabulated form numerous measurements of stems and needles of Pinus, 
Abies, and Picea. In a large part of these the variations in needle 
length are without any apparent relation to that of the stem. Nega- 
tive testimony of this kind is not very strong, for a more judicious 
than judicial selection of material can make it show almost anything. 
For instance, Meissner (p. 30 ef seg.) would prove by it that I am 
unreasonable in expecting the different parts of one tree to vary alike 
in the growth of stems and needles.* While it must be said that the 
frequency of exceptions has surprised me, it has still seemed to me in 
the observation and measurement of conifers, wild and cultivated, in 
various parts of the United States, that in a great majority of instances 
the stems and needles vary in length together. But perhaps Meissner 
would have drawn the opposite conclusion in the same forests, with an 
equal desire to see things as they are. Results obtained by the statis- 
tical method can hardly ever have the weight of those yielded by 
judicious experimentation. 
Part II deals with mutilation experiments. As would be expected, 
if the mutilation compels the tree to devote its plastic material to the 
*Ueber das Verhiltniss von Stamm- und Nadellange bei einigen Coniferen. 
Bot. Zeit. 59:25. 1901. 
* Abhandl. d. naturf. Gesells. zu Halle 16 : 363. 1886. 
3A biological note on the size of evergreen needles. Bot. Gaz. 25 : 427: 1898 
‘The proportionate length of stem and needle on the main axis and its branches 
in one season is an altogether different subject. 
356 [NOVEMBER 
aaa ENS 
