14 BULLETIN 962, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGEICULTURE. 



These are invariably vigorous and productive. Each of these basal 

 leaves in seedlings tips a bulb scale, and it is found that the plants 

 which hold back and build up a large store by the development of 

 an abundant strong basal leafage before throwing up their flower 

 stalks are the strongest and most productive. 



The plants which have blossomed in the field are exceedingly in- 

 teresting from the fact that they bear mostly double-nosed bulbs, 

 which when potted will give at the second blossoming two stems 

 bearing two to five flowers each. (See fig. 7.) AVhy this pre- 

 ponderance of double-nosed bulbs occurs at this stage so promi- 

 nently in field-grown seedlings is not entirely clear. The condition 

 is more general than in pot-grown plants, i. e., those kept in pots 

 in the greenhouse through their first flowering. It looks sometimes 

 as though the stem in the field is of such great diameter as actually 

 to force a separation of one side of the bulb from the other, thus 

 compelling the formation of two crowns for the next season instead 

 of one, as normally obtains in bulbs of the same size developed vege- 

 tatively from small bulbs. 



BEHAVIOR OF THE SEEDLINGS AFTER REPOTTING FROM THE FIELD. 



The methods of handling the seedlings after they are repotted from 

 the field have been considered under another heading. Their be- 

 havior is most satisfactory. In two years' experience in handling 

 them in this way they have never even appreciably wilted, although 

 three or four days have sometimes elapsed between the time of dig- 

 ging and the end of the potting. 



In the handling incident to the transfer from the field to the pots 

 some and frequently all of the leaves are broken off, for the basal 

 leaves of seedlings, attached as they are to the tips of the scales, are 

 quite brittle. There is, consequently, a goodly number of the bulbs 

 which are entirely without leafage when ready to pot. No attention 

 is paid to this, these bulbs being potted like the others. They in- 

 variably come on again in fine condition from the same crown; in 

 other words, they are not to be distinguished from the dormant im- 

 ported bulbs except that they grow more rapidly. 



Strange as it may seem, these repotted seedlings, although moved 

 with care and w^ilting but little, have to make in large measure a new 

 root system after being potted from the field. Plants at all stages of 

 growth, even up to full well-advanced buds which will open in 10 

 days, can be successfully' repotted, but even these make an almost 

 entirely new root system. 



For this reason it will not do to subject the plants to heat until 

 the pots have filled with roots again, any more than it is permissible 

 to subject poorly rooted imported bulbs to such treatment. This 

 point should be kept in mind. The grower should realize that he can 



