24 



shown any fruit. I shall watch the plants very closely and if 

 on any of them fruits are produced during the season I shall 

 be glad to send you specimens. It may be possible that by 

 growing a few of the plants in my garden I will be able to bring 

 about fruit production. I shall attempt it at any rate and if 

 I am at all successful I shall be glad to let you know it. 



"I think I told you in my former letter that this plant has 

 been spreading over an acre or more of our fields being carried 

 largely on the tools in the preparation of the field for crops." 



Just two years later Professor Stone after securing specimens 

 from which we could make a positive specific identification, 

 wrote as follows: 



"You may recall that ... I sent you a specimen of a 

 crucifer which has appeared on the Station farm and which 

 was causing us a great deal of difficulty, No one of us here 

 has been able to identify it, and at the time I sent you the 

 specimen last summer you wrote me that you were much in- 

 terested in it, but were unable to identify it without the seed 

 pods. I wrote you at that time that like the Armoracia Armora- 

 cia this plant produced [immature] pods only, which then withered 

 and failed to produce seed. 



"I am sending you under separate cover wrapped in damp 

 material another specimen of this plant. You will note that 

 while small seed pods have formed all of them gradually with- 

 ered away. It has been our experience that during the three 

 years which we have been working with the plant that it has 

 never produced mature seeds. 



"I think I wrote you last year that I inferred that the plant 

 had been brought to the University farm through an importa- 

 tion of alfalfa seed purchased from Turkestan. 



"Very numerous specimens of weeds are sent to our laboratory 

 each summer, but never have we had specimens of this plant 

 sent to us, and I feel certain that they would have been had it 

 appeared any where else in the State because its habits are 

 such as to cause much anxiety to any farmer if it appears on 

 his farm. In none of our reference works which have been 

 examined thus far have I been able to discover any mention 

 or description of a plant with the habits of growth of this one 

 and for this reason I am inclined to think that we have either 

 an introduced plant or a new species and I hope during the pro- 

 gress of the summer to determine which." 



