[Proc. Rot. Soc. Victoria, 32 (N.S.), Pt. 11., 1920]. 



Art. XVII. — The Longevity of Cut Flowers, 



By ELLINOR ARCHER, M.Sc, 



(Secretary of the Seed Improvement Committee). 



[Read 11th December, 1919.] 



This work was carried ovit in the Botanical Department of Melbourne- 

 University, as Government Research Scholar. 



In studying the question of the longevity of cut flowers, the first 

 thing to be taken into account is the reason or reasons which cause 

 cut flowers to die, or to lose their characters as flowers by passing, 

 into the fruiting condition. 



That is, flowers may undergo either : — 



(1) Withering of the sepals and petals due to passage from the 



flowering to the fruiting stage. 



(2) Falling of the sepals and petals due to the same cause. 



(3) Abnormal premature withering. 



The last cause is naturally the only one to be considered wheni 

 dealing with the longevity of cut flowers. 



Abnormal withering may be caused in various ways : — 



(1) By the blocking: of the vessels preventing the rise of sap- 



and, as transpiratioai continues, resulting in a loss of 

 turgor, followed by drooping. 



(2) sij self-poisoning, owing to an exudation of poison fromt 

 cells near the cut surface. 



In the work that has been done up to date no actual case of 

 premature withering due to poisoning has been proved. The man- 

 ner in which cases of possible poisoning were tested was as fol- 

 lows : — Some of the suspected material was thoroughly ground and 

 squeezed, and an extract made, in one case by boiling in water, 

 ^nd in the other by soaking for a considerable period in cold 

 water. Fresh flowers were then placed in the extract, which should 

 contain the poison in concentrated form, but in every case the 

 material in the extract lasted just as well as the control, proving 

 that there cannot have been much, if any, poison present in the- 

 extract. 



The most frequent cause of abnormal withering is, therefore, 

 some form of blocking of' the vessels with a resultant loss of turgor. 

 That blocking does actually take place can easily be seen by section- 

 ing the stem at short distances from the cut ends, and examining 

 the vessels under a microscope. 



