tees COFFMAN—POLLINATION IN ALFALFA 201 
it and from being broken, should the flower accidentally be tripped. 
One of the wing petals was then pulled away and the stamens 
examined. Most of the flowers in the erect standard stage, as they 
were found in the field, had already been tripped, untripped flowers 
being rather difficult to secure. A total of 316 flowers was examined 
and recorded as follows: 
Straight bud stage....... 85 Hooded bud stage....... 39 
Pointed bud stage....... 170 ~—— Erect standard stage... .. 22 
In the straight bud class, the flowers measure 5—8 mm. in length, 
and of the total number recorded, in only four instances had the 
stamens shed their pollen. The flowers in the pointed bud stage 
are considerably longer, being 6-10 mm. in length, and practically 
one-half of those recorded were pollinated. The hooded and erect 
classes of buds do not differ greatly from each other in size, varying 
from 7 to 12mm. in length. But three flowers in the hooded bud 
stage had not been pollinated, while no unpollinated erect standard 
blossoms were found. The data as taken in this investigation, on 
the stages of bud development in relation to pollination, are given 
in table I. 
From the data secured, the percentages of pollination of the 
flowers of different lengths, regardless of their stages of develop- 
ment, are given in table II. 
TABLE II 
Pepe | No ecumined [YO *ERCS | autiaesiintoct | Gehieced  janthors Cohiaces 
eee ee! 21 20 95-24 I 4.76 
a eae es 69 67 Q7-11 2 89 
OE Soe 8r 56 69.14 25 30.86 
See eae 73 21 28.77 52 71.23 
ye ene 55 5 9.09 50 90.91 
Mes ear. 15 I 6.67 14 93-33 
Mii, I ° ° I 100.00 
3 eh eet I ° ° I 100.00 
Total 316 8 as TE RE Baan 
According to table II, anthers do not seem to shed their pollen 
before the flowers have reached 7 mm. in length, and most of them 
have done so by the time they are between 9 and 10 mm. long. 
