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SEX DISTRIBUTION 41 
was formed. The bulbs were cut so as to remove all but a small 
portion in connection with the bud. By this removal of the larger 
part of the stored food the plants were changed to male.” 
Gow in 1913 (14) made the statement that these plants prob- 
ably alternate in sex from year to year. In proof of that theory 
he stated that plants which had borne pistillate flowers one year 
produced staminate flowers the next season after being trans- 
planted. 
The present writer has made rather extensive attempts to 
duplicate the experiments of Atkinson, but has encountered two 
serious difficulties, viz., many of the corms have been partly or 
wholly destroyed by fungi, and there seems to be no way to deter- 
mine certainly when the flower initials are being formed. The 
wide variation in the time of flower development is discussed in 
another section, and it need only be said here that two plants of a 
group rarely show the same stage of development, the range in 
staminate spikes being from bud initials to completed tetrads in 
late July. This would mean a possible difference of six weeks in 
the formation of the flower fundaments of plants in one group. 
From this it is clear that any experiment depending upon uniform- 
ity of development would be open to question. The history of 
the experiments as performed and the results follow. Robust 
plants which bore purely pistillate spikes were dug up the first 
week of June, and after having the lower two thirds of the corm 
cut away and being allowed to form a dry callous by two days’ 
exposure to the sun and air, were planted in rich loam. Through 
the year these cultures were treated just the same as others that 
were in every way normal. The following spring a part of these 
corms produced flowers, and all the flowers were staminate. Their 
growth was not normal, however, and all the plants were small and 
variously deformed. Some produced leaves only, and three of the 
plants produced inflorescences only without leaves. This goes to 
show merely that the primary effect of the mutilation was a serious 
disturbance of the general system of nourishment. The same 
spring some three hundred corms were reset for experimental 
purposes, the collecting being done in late May and early June. 
Those plants which had borne only pistillate spikes were carefully 
kept apart. All were planted in rich, moist loam and watered 
