II2 BOTANICAL GAZETTE [FEBRUARY 
I have some material now in hand which meets this requirement, 
but have not yet continued the experiments long enough to allow 
more than a preliminary report upon its behavior. For several 
years I have been investigating the sex ratios in Lychnis dioica L., 
and for this purpose have made carefully controlled pollinations 
yearly in this usually dioecious species. It was my good fortune 
during the summer of 1908 to find among these pure-bred cultures 
six hermaphrodite individuals, the first which I had seen in the 
several years during which I had been working with this species, in 
which time I had examined some 8000 pedigreed individuals. In 
the past season I have noted eight hermaphrodites, usually more or 
less imperfect, in pure-bred normal families including a total of 
10,320 individuals. Only two of these eight were well developed 
and appeared to be fully functional both as males and females. 
Although the occasional occurrence of hermaphrodite individuals 
in this species has been frequently noted,? I have never seen any 
of them growing wild in the vicinity of Cold Spring Harbor, where the 
original material for my cultures was collected. STRASBURGER 
(II) found that hermaphrodite plants in his cultures at Bonn were 
invariably affected by a smut, Ustilago violacea, which fruits in the 
anthers, and he ventured the suggestion that all the reported hermaph- 
rodites in this species may have been such diseased individuals; 
but, fortunately for my experiments, Ustilago violacea has never 
appeared among my Lychnis cultures, and some, at least, of the 
hermaphrodite individuals were capable of functioning both as 
males and females. Five of the hermaphrodites found in 1908 were 
members of a single family (0739). Several of these hermaphrodite 
mutants did not have the ovaries and pistils fully developed, and 
consequently my ability to secure offspring from them was somewhat 
limited. However, during the past summer, I had 13 families in 
which one of these hermaphrodite plants entered as either the male 
or female parent. Two of the six original hermaphrodites died 
before I had opportunity to use them in crossing. Of the remaining 
four, two were successfully self fertilized, and one of these was also . 
successfully used as a mother in crosses with a normal male. 
2See Penzic, O., Pflanzenteratologie 1:300; and KNuts, P., Handbuch i 
Bliitenbiologie 2':174, 175. 
