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THE AMERICAN NATURALIST [Vol. XLIII 



In taking up the counting of the ovules per pod it was found 

 that the alcohol had rendered the material so brittle that it was 

 out of the question to keep the flowers in serial order from the 

 base of the inflorescence, and consequently all attempt at a de- 

 termination of this point was abandoned for the first collection. 

 As a matter of fact the flowers are so closely grouped in the 

 inflorescence of the red bud that the determination of their se- 

 quence would not be easy even in freshly gathered clusters. A 

 priori, one would suppose that in an inflorescence so shortened as 

 this, position on the axis would have little influence upon the 

 character of the ovaries. But of course this point should be 

 investigated, for if there is a sensible correlation between posi- 

 tion on the inflorescence axis and number of ovules, and between 

 the position of an ovary on the inflorescence and its chances of 

 growing into a mature fruit, this might introduce a serious 

 difficulty into the comparison of eliminated and matured ovaries, 

 in consequence of those of certain types beinu- eliminated merely 

 because of their position on the inflorescence. 



The numbers of ovules per ovary for the several series of ma- 

 terial are seriated in Table I. In a very small percentage of the 

 cases it was impossible for one reason or another to determine 

 the number of ovules. These cases are placed in the ? column ; 

 in calculations they have not been considered, JV being reduced by 

 their number. I have no reason to think that these ovaries are 

 in any way different from the others, and so they might have 

 been discarded without comment, but in material of this kind it 

 is best to account for every individual. Perhaps the single entry 

 in the column is due to one of the ovaries being too young. 



