ORIGIN OF SEX. 23 
tions on the proportion of male and female plants produced from 
seeds taken from different parts of the hemp plant. He found 
that the seed taken from the lower, more mature, and more highly 
developed parts of the plant gave a much larger proportion of 
male-producing seed, than seed taken from the upper, more succu- 
lent, less mature, less highly developed parts, as the following 
figures will indicate. Of 125 hemp plants the proportion of 
males to females was— 
Males Females 
692 1000 
1° In the subjects taken from the weak oh eam re 
In those which came from strong pla 907 1000 
2° In the subjects ae from the seeds Sane by the 
inferior half of the stem of weak plan ants, oseceerebeee 1250 = 1000 
ate in oni ‘which wh wa cs p superior half.....« 444 1000 
3° In seed gue by the 
Pas gate half of f the stem f ads To E 1 1000 
d in those which came from the s mre Ralf o ssss 827 1000 
The same observer in subsequent experiments* declares that 
seeds from nearest the summit of the stem gave proportionally 
more females than those from the middle and base. The lower 
branches gave a larger proportion of males than the upper. I 
might repeat many similar experiments with the same result. 
Concerning the size of the seeds, he says that the largest and 
smallest gave a predominating proportion of males, while those 
of the mean size gave more especially females. 
The carefully made observations of Mr. Thomas Meehan of 
Germantown, Philadelphia Co., Penn., are singularly in harmony 
with those of Mr. Girou and others, though, I alia made en- 
tirely independently of a knowledge of the latte 
Mr. Meehan has observed that in several has of the order 
Cupulifere, and he believes in all of them, “we find the female 
_ flowers only on the strongest young growths, and only at or near 
the apex of the first great wave of spring growth, as if it were 
the culmination of a great vegetative effort which produced them, 
instead of a decline as in the male.” 
*Girou, Suite des Expériences sur la Génération des Plantes, | Annales des Sci- 
ences Naturelles, t. xxiv, pp. 138-148. 
tOn the igs of the phate Proc. Amer. Assoc. Ady. Sci., 1869, pp. 256-60. See 
also, ibid., , pp. 276-280; ibid., 1868, p. 317. Proc. Acad. Nat. ares 1868, 9, 70. Also 
Gardener's Monthly (edited by Mi: een), 1E, p- 333, et ~ Also Dr. S. W. 
Butler’ ti Medical and 
Surin Seti ne, Phila., "Oct. sy si p- 330, et al. loc. Op. cit.; also, Mr. Meehan 
in Old and New, Feb., 1872, p. 173 et seq. 
