Some Solution Cultures of Wheat 



without Potassium. 1 ^&>fc 



By 



Koichi Morita and Burton E. Livingstone. 2 



(With one Text-figure) 



Abstract. 



This paper reports a preliminary series of cultures of young 

 wheat plants in ninety different solutions without potassium but with 

 all the other essential chemical elements. The plants were grown from 

 the seed in a complete nutrient solution, until they were about 3 cm. 

 high, after which they were placed in the incomplete solutions and 



1) Botanical contribution from the Johns Hopkins University, No. 63. 



2) Mr. Morita died suddenly, of influenza, in the Johns Hopkins Hospital, 

 Baltimore, Maryland, on February 8, 1920. He had already accomplished practical- 

 ly all the work required for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, with the exception 

 of the dissertation, upon which he was well started when the end came. He had 

 completed the detailed plans for the experimentation upon which the dissertation was 

 to be based, and the first series of experimental cultures was actually in progress at 

 the time of his death. The required stock solutions for this series were in readiness 

 for the completion of the series. Mr. H. C. Diehl, of this Laboratory, continued 

 the series until the physiolc gical results seemed to be clear. Mr. J. E. Metzger, of 

 this Laboratory and of the Maryland Experiment Station, took part in the final 

 observations. Mr. Diehl has worked over Mr. Morita's note-books, together with 

 the experimental data, and it has been with his help that I have been able to prepare 

 the present publication. We have thought it desirable and fitting that we should 

 thus place on record in the literature certain somewhat novel points of view em- 

 braced by Mr. Morita's well-laid plans, and certain experimental indications brought 

 out by the cultures that he himself began. We shall be glad if this little paper may 

 be received by physiologists and botanists as a report of part of Mr. Morita's w6rk 

 itself, and also as a slight and inadequate memorial, of the exceptional research 

 ability and personal devotion of which botanical science has been deprived through 

 Mr. Morita's death. The future seemed to hold forth very great promise for him. 

 Science has lost much by Koichi Morita's death, those who enjoyed personal 

 acquaintance with him have lost more. He was a thorough gentleman, an ever 

 alert scholar, and an indefatigable worker in the cause of scientific advancement. 

 — B. E. L. 



