OBSERVATIONS ON TULIPS 
I. Brinp TuLips 
The term “blind” is quite generally and popularly applied to 
tulip plants that do not produce flowers but which have been 
grown from bulbs of such size that flowers would be expected. 
In such plants there is at least some development of the flower 
stalk and the leaves formed are attached directly to this stalk. 
In this sense blind tulips are quite distinct from plants having 
a scale leaf only, as is most common of plants grown from bulbs 
of small size. This distinction is well illustrated in Nos. 3 and 4 
of Plate 38. The plant shown in No. 3 had a flower stalk bearing 
three leaves, but the uppermost portion of the stem with the flower 
bud failed to develop and is represented by a withered dead stub. 
The tulip was blind. In No. 4 no flower stem developed and the 
leaf formed was an extension of a bulb scale; growing points of 
the flower stems had remained in a rudimentary condition and 
were still enclosed in the bulb. 
Three stages or degrees of blindness are iasttsted i in Plate 37. 
In No. 1 four stem leaves were formed and only the part of the 
flower stalk above the leaves was aborted. In No. 2 only two 
stem leaves were- formed; the dead portion here included some 
of the leaves. In No. 3 all the leaves but the lowest were in- 
cluded in the dead portion. In all three plants the lower part of 
the stem was present and in all three the shrivelled dead apex was 
in evidence as shown. The occurrence of such blind tulips is 
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