178 



C. T. PRIME 



3-4 cm. through the soil in growing. Therefore it seems that the age of a colony about 

 45 cm. in diameter is not less than twenty or thirty years. 



A certain number of corms die or are lost in any given year. In some experiments 

 the results given in Table 2 were obtained. 



The death of the older corms suggests a factor which limits the size of the clumps. 

 If the older die and are succeeded by daughters, which do not all point in the same directions 

 as the parents and which grow and move more slowly, then a limit will be set to the size, 

 or the clump will break up into smaller parts. 



The cause of the death of the older corms is obscure ; in the experiment given above 

 there was no evidence of the corms being eaten and in most cases the remains could be 

 found. It was thought possible that flowering and fruiting might cause exhaustion leading 

 to death. This was tested by experiment with negative result. Thus in one experiment 

 the corms that flowered weighed 186*1 gm. in 1950 but 246-4 gm. in 1951. Those 

 which did not flower weighed 264*2 gm. in 1950, and 257*1 gm. in 1951. 



REFERENCE 



SALISBURY, E. J., 1942, The reproductive capacity of plants. London. 



