EFFECT OF ENVIRONMENTAL CONDITIONS UPON TOBACCO PLANTS 50I 
furnished by a stunted plant capable of supporting but one capsule 
is any less favorable to normal seed development than that furnished 
by a plant of maximum size producing great numbers of capsules. 
If it is assumed that nutritional differences during some initial period 
of embryonic development determine leaf number, it is reasonable to 
expect that capsules developed at different stages of the reproductive 
period on the most completely nourished plants will show a slightly 
higher or lower leaf number. 
Summary 
Very severely stunted tobacco plants have been studied in com- 
parison with plants of normal size grown under optimum conditions 
of soil moisture. The average number of nodes produced above the 
cotyledons, exclusive of the branches of the terminal whorl, has re- 
mained constant under all conditions. Unfavorable conditions 
reduce the size of the inflorescence. Stunting may be carried to such 
an extreme that the branches of the terminal whorl may be entirely 
suppressed, so that the inflorescence of the plant is reduced to the single 
terminal blossom of the mainstem. 
The position of the first bald sucker is not constant under all con- 
ditions. Although it may occupy its true position in normal plants, 
it is one of the higher lateral branches of the inflorescence which 
appears to be the first bald sucker in stunted plants. In very severely 
stunted plants, all the lateral branches of the inflorescence may be 
suppressed. 
Office of Tobacco and Plant Nutrition Investigations, 
Bureau of Plant Industry, 
U. S. Department of Agriculture 
EXPLANATION OF PLATES XX-XXIII 
Plate XX. Stunted Connecticut Broadleaf Plant grown in 5-inch pot. 
Plate XXI. Plant No. 7 grown in moist soil in Experiment I. 
Plate XXII. Plant No. 7 grown in dry soil in Experiment I. 
Plate XXIII. Plant of ist generation of cross Md. Mammoth 9 X 70-Leaf 
Cuban c^. 
