1921] SCHAFFNER—HEMP 211 
conclusion. The decided sexual dimorphism exhibited by the 
sporophyte of the hemp is not due to some homozygous or heter- 
ozygous condition, and is not due to the absence of one or the other 
sex potentialities. The dimorphism:depends on a fundamental 
state inherent in the cells, either male or female, which can be 
reversed by the operation of an abnormal environment in the 
vegetative tissues during the life of the individual. The sexual 
state is not controlled by segregating Mendelian units. The 
reversions and transformations are not related to the synaptic 
associations and segregations of chromosomes in the reduction 
division, nor in the homozygous or heterozygous mixtures of 
chromosomes during fertilization. There can be no question 
that it would be possible with proper environmental control of the 
original gametes and zygote to determine the original sexual state 
of the embryo as readily as the established sexual state can be 
shifted later, either from male to female or from female to male. 
In the winter plots a few individuals approached what might 
be regarded as a monoecious condition. These plants were inter- 
mediate-in robustness and about as tall as the staminate plants. 
They developed stamens and gynoecia and abnormal sporophyll 
structures from the beginning and continued to do so to the end. 
It is suggested that these individuals were either of a distinct 
genetic constitution like a typical monoecious plant with the 
vegetative tissues in a neutral state in respect to sex until the 
incepts of the flower buds appear, or else the sporophyte embryos 
were determined as staminate plants of only a slight degree of 
maleness, and were then reversed to a neutral condition, as in the 
ordinary types, by the influence of the environment at an early 
stage, perhaps soon after sprouting. From the neutral meriste- 
matic tissue the floral parts would then be thrown either into the 
male or female state. In cases where a sporophyll is partly 
staminate and partly carpellate, it must be assumed that the 
determination of the sexual state was delayed until the tissues 
were considerably developed, and that then maleness was estab- 
lished at one point and femaleness at another, probably depending 
on the metabolic level of the cells involved. If the intermediate 
nature of these plants is due to some definite genetic constitution, 
