JANTJAET 1, 1915] 



SCIENCE 



33 



from whicli the first map of the region will be 

 prepared. Observations of snowfall and tem- 

 peratures will also throw light on the alimen- 

 tation of the glacier and its many tributaries. 



Photographs of the Olaciers of Prince William 

 Sound 



Observations of some 20 glaciers in College 

 Fjord, Harriman Fjord and Columbia Bay 

 constituted the second part of the work, which 

 is a continuance of the study of the advance 

 and recession of these glaciers with a view to 

 determining their causes. Some glaciers ap- 

 pear to have receded as much as a quarter of 

 a mile in a year, while others near-by seem to 

 have advanced as great an amount. 



In spite of great difficulty and some risk in 

 forcing a frail row-boat through solid jams of 

 icebergs, which threatened to crush it, this 

 part of the expedition also was accomplished 

 without accident. 



SPECIAL ABTICLES 



AN EARLY OBSERVATION ON THE RED SUNFLOWER 



Until the present month (November, 1914) 

 I supposed that the red sunflower found at 

 Boulder was the first of its kind ever seen by 

 a botanist. I have, however, recently learned 

 from Dr. David Griffiths, of the U. S. Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture, that as long ago as 

 1892 he found a few plants of the wild annual 

 sunflower on the Missouri River bottom in 

 Potter County, South Dakota, having the rays 

 marked at the base with maroon, about the 

 same color as is seen in the dark forms of 

 Lepachys. Again, in 1897, he saw in the Sun- 

 dance region of Wyoming (probably within 15 

 or 20 miles of Sundance) a single plant having 

 the rays maroon, with only a narrow fringe of 

 yellow. Dr. Griffiths discussed the matter with 

 Mr. T. A. Williams, who had also seen a plant 

 somewhere, he thinks in the Bad Lands of 

 South Dakota. It thus appears that the red 

 sunflower has arisen independently as a 

 " sport " in at least three widely separated 

 places, a fact which may have a certain bearing 

 on the suggestions of Professor Bateson re- 

 garding its nature. It is to be noted that the 

 two cases reported by Dr. Griffiths represent 



different subvarieties, both different from the 

 original Boulder one. 



In Botanical Gazette, October, 1914, Pro- 

 fessor E. C. Jeffrey has a very interesting 

 article on the relation between hybridism and 

 imperfection of pollen.^ The various forms of 

 red sunflowers which have been developed for 

 horticultural purposes result from crossing the 

 original wild sport of Helianthus lenticularis 

 with various garden forms ascribed to H. 

 annuus. Speaking broadly, these crosses, in 

 all directions and through several generations, 

 have been perfectly fertile, at least in the 

 sense that they have produced abundant seed. 

 Deficiency of pollen has however been common, 

 especially in dark red varieties and doubles. 

 My wife, who made the crosses, was sometimes 

 unable to get pollen from some of the most 

 beautiful plants, though she could obtain seed 

 from these by using pollen from others. Ac- 

 cording to Dr. Jeffrey's criteria, this might 

 seem to indicate that H. lenticularis and 

 annuus are distinct species, although in this 

 case it seems nearly certain the species annuus 

 arose in cultivation. It is possible, of course, 

 that the prairie sunflower, H. lenticularis, ia 

 a mixture of more or less different things. 

 Thus we obtained seed of the wild Calif ornian 

 form, which appeared to be true lenticularis, 

 but had the physiological peculiarity of re- 

 maining in flower after the Colorado plants 

 were over. If, however, the present red sun- 

 flower of horticulture is in any sense a " crypt- 

 hybrid," it certainly presents a very different 

 case from the hybrids between it and the un- 

 doubtedly distinct species H. cucumerifolius. 

 These latter hybrids, of various kinds accord- 

 ing to the particular varieties used, are some 

 of them very attractive. They can be pro- 

 duced in quantity as F^ plants, but so far it 

 has proved impracticable to get enough Fj seed 

 for horticultural purposes. The behavior here 

 is much more like that usually expected of 

 hybrids. 



1 With regard to Sarins, wliicli is specially cited 

 by Dr. Jeffrey in illustration of his theory, it is 

 to be noted that this genus was apparently pro- 

 ducing hybrids in Miocene times. {Amer. Jour. 

 Science, Jan., 1910, p. 76.) 



