AMERICAN 
JOURNAL OF BOTANY 
Vol. Ill May, 1916 No. 5 
SIGNIFICANT ACCURACY IN RECORDING GENETIC 
DATA 
E. M. East 
In 1913, I contributed a paper to the Botanical Gazette (55: 177- 
188) on the inheritance of flower size in a cross between Nicotiana 
alata grandiflora Comes, and a type thought to be Nicotiana for getiana 
Hort. Sand. Corolla size had been selected for study because in this 
genus it is "so comparatively constant under all conditions attending 
development" — something which could not be said of any other size 
character that had been under observation. Since other investiga- 
tions of the same kind were under way, and a larger amount of data 
might be reported later, the "liberty of asserting the truth of this 
statement" with only the following data in its support was requested. 
This paragraph followed. 
"During the past four years, I have grown about 20 species of 
Nicotiana in considerable numbers. They have been grown under 
very diverse conditions. Some have been starved in four-inch pots, 
others have had the best of greenhouse treatment; some have had 
poor field conditions, others have had all field conditions practically 
at their best. The height of the plants, the size of the leaves, and 
similar size complexes have varied enormously, but the size of the 
corollas has scarcely varied at all. For example, plants of Nicotiana 
sylvestris Speg. & Comes, grown to maturity in four-inch pots, pro- 
duced no leaves longer than 7 inches. On the other hand, sister plants 
of the same pure line produced leaves 30 inches long in the field. 
Both series, however, produced flowers with the same length and 
spread of corolla. Furthermore, cuttings from 20 of the field plants 
reported in this study were rooted and grown in small pots (6 inch) 
in the greenhouse. Their blossoms were the same size as those of the 
field grown plants from which they came." 
[The Journal for April (3: 135-210) was issued April 18, 1916.] 
211 
