18 Nebraska Agricultural Exp. Station, Research Bui. 7. 
pods. (See growth curves, Fig. 12.) Apparently growth would 
have continued longer in the greenhouse had not the experiment 
been discontinued. Under very favorable conditions, then, pole 
beans not only produce longer internodes but also more of them 
than under unfavorable conditions. The same indeterminate 
habit of growth is exhibited by all the branches of pole beans. 
In bush beans, on the contrary, usually only from 4 to 8 nodes 
develop in the main axis. Rich, moist soil and favorable weather 
increase the internode length just as in pole beans but apparently 
have little influence on the number of nodes. The main axis 
always terminates in an inflorescence. The flowers of this terminal 
inflorescence open first and the flowers at lower nodes only slightly 
later. (See Fig. 6.) Most of the pods mature at about the same 
time under ordinary conditions. If there has been a heavy 
setting of pods, and if conditions are unfavorable, the plants 
usually die when the pods mature. If the flowers are removed as 
soon as they form and if the soil and weather conditions are 
favorable, the plants remain alive for a considerable time, but 
the main axis cannot be forced to elongate further. The new 
growth resulting from this treatment always consists of secondary 
branches, usually from the lower nodes, and these branches, 
like the primary axis, terminate in flower clusters and cannot 
then be forced into further growth. Tertiary branches have the 
same fate. 
The terminal inflorescence of a bush bean is indeterminate in 
the sense that the lower flowers of the inflorescence open first 
and the upper ones last, but not in the sense that the inflorescence 
continues to elongate indefinitely. (See Fig. 7B.) The axis of the 
terminal inflorescence of bush beans develops apparently as a con- 
tinuation of the main axis of the plant. In Figure 7 A there are 
shown parts of the upper leaf and petiole of a bush bean together 
with the terminal inflorescence. In the axil of this leaf there develop- 
ed a cluster of flowers, similar to the flower clusters that develop in 
the leaf axils of pole beans, as seen in Figure 7C. A little higher 
on the axis of this terminal inflorescence (Fig. 7A), is a second 
flower cluster, but here a small bract takes the place of a leaf. 
The same is true of the third flower cluster. The fourth cluster 
terminates the axis of the inflorescence abruptly. The inflores- 
cence seen in Figure 7B developed a fifth flower cluster by which 
the axis was terminated. (The first flower cluster of this in- 
florescence, in the axil of the upper leaf, is not shown in the 
figure.) In certain races of bush beans, the terminal inflorescence 
consists of only two or three flower clusters, rarely of a single 
cluster in the axil of the upper leaf. 
The bush form of Lima bean {Phaseolus lunatus) is known to 
