KM 



NOTE and COMMENT 



Seedlings of Solomon's Seal. — -The underground parts 

 of plants have seldom been regarded as attractive objects for 

 study — even the plant collector, until recently, discarded them 

 when making- specimens — but there are many remarkable things 

 about them that are noAv being brought to light. Richard Vogt, 

 who has been studying the seedlings of the Solomon's seal 

 {Polygonatum) finds, for instance, that in this plant the seed- 

 lings though growing, do not reach the surface of the earth 

 until the second summer. Like various other species, a certain 

 shifting of the stored food seems necessary before the ordinary 

 vegetative processes can be begun. AMien the seed begins to 

 germinate, or sprout, the cotyledon does not come out of the 

 seed-coat as in most plants, but remains within acting as an 

 absorbing organ. The caulicle or beginning stem is the first 

 part of the plant to appear and this soon develops a root two or 

 three inched long. Later this caulicle splits open along one. side 

 and the first bud appears. This bud has only a few scales in- 

 stead of leaves, the first season, and remains buried in the soil. 

 This is quite the reverse of what occurs in ordinary plants, for 

 in the latter the sprouting of the seed usually carries the bud 

 up to the light in a few days. During the first summer of the 

 young Solomon's seal, then, the reserve food in the seed is 

 gradually transferred to^ the caulicle and by autumn this has 

 formed a tuber-like body about as large as the original seed. 

 The second season, the first leaf, a simple long-petioled organ, 

 is sent up to the light. The food made by this leaf is transferred 

 to the base of the petiole and produces a second tuber-like body 



