Caryophyllaceæ. 235 



whole life in the vegetative stage. On an older plant the 

 basal part is therefore composed of barren shoots (rosette- 

 shoots) and of flowering shoots or the basal, dead portions of 

 such shoots (Fig. 2), since at the commencement of the cold 

 season, the shoots die so far down, that only small basal 

 portions remain alive, which bear the buds for the next 

 year. This results in a complex of shoots and portions of 

 shoots which are held together by the tap-root and which 

 have formerly been called "Rhizoma multiceps", "Radix 

 multiceps" or, by Hj. Nilsson, "pseudorhizom", "Skott- 

 basis-Komplex". In 1918 I suggested the old name "meso- 

 cormus" for it ("caudex", "Mellemstok", the French 

 "souche"). 



Plants, with the structure described above, are typi- 

 cally cæspitose in habit (plantæ cæspitosi>>), and occur singly, 

 often growing scattered on the ground. 



The flowering shoots can, in the same species, e. g. in 

 Melandrium triflorum, be either very short or long (for in- 

 stance 25 cm.) — according to the prevailing conditions. 



The germination, in some of the species, has been 

 investigated by Sylvén and Warming. The cotyledons are 

 epigeous and resemble, more or less, the rosette- leaves (cfr. 

 Figs. 5, 8). The first rosette is found immediately above the 

 cotyledons. On cultivating Viscaria alpina I found no develop- 

 ment of lateral shoots in the year in which it germinated, 

 but in the second year lateral rosettes occurred, and already 

 in these there were buds for the lateral shoots of the 3rd 

 order. Three-year-old plants of this species were already 

 in flower; but otherwise the number of years necessary for 

 a plant to spend in a vegetative stage before it can flower, 

 undoubtedly varies greatly, according to the prevailing con- 

 ditions. In nature the vegetative stage appears to last for 

 several years (Sylvén). 



