1910] 
BRIEFER ARTICLES 59 
VIVIPARY IN TILLANDSIA TENUIFOLIA L. 
(WITH ONE FIGURE) 
SMALL, in his Flora S. E. United States, gives the range of this species of 
Tillandsia as in swamps and about rivers in Georgia and Florida, also in 
Fic. x 
tropic America. Its normal method of 
reproduction is by small, light, pointed 
seeds, to which are attached a bunch of 
hairs that spread out at the top horizon- 
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tall y,t t t wind 
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carriage. This in connection with the 
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by which the seeds can find lodgment 
upon some limb or tree trunk and 
grow attached some distance above 
the ground. 
Another method of reproduction by 
the adoption of a viviparous habit was 
discovered in this plant in a specimen 
brought from the south on the branch 
of a forest tree which was hung in the 
greenhouses of the University of Penn-- 
sylvania. In the three or four plants 
examined, it was found that the seeds 
in all cases (fig. r, 6) had germinated in 
the capsules (fig. 1, a), and that the 
seedling plants thus produced (fig. 1, ¢) 
had two or three short shoots, as well as 
four or five awl-shaped leaves arranged 
in the tufted manner of the mature 
plant. These small plants were ready 
to fall out of the cells of the capsule 
whenever the dry valves spread far 
enough apart to permit this discharge 
to take place. Whether this viviparous 
habit is shown by all the species of 
Tillandsia, I cannot state, but it seems 
= be a method by which additional surety is given to the perpetuation of the 
Species. —JoHN W. Harsupercer, University of Pennsylvania. 
