Relation to Cultivation. 
4i7 
even in overgrown localities and on bad soil. Carefully raised 
garden-plants are, however, much more sensitive than wild 
ones, and with this the tendency to biastrepsis is intimately 
connected. For instance, the cultivated plants are often 
killed by frost in damp winters with us, or only the main 
flowering shoot is killed. ^ In the latter case lateral shoots are 
thrown up in 'the following summer which usually show but 
little twisting ; but the plants may be used as seed-bearers. The 
plants should therefore be protected during the winter, if there is 
no snow, with straw or leaves. A single dead leaf placed over 
the crown of the rosette suffices to protect, if only it is kept 
in position, and does no harm however long it remains. 
The most detailed report which I have received regarding 
the cultivation of this breed is that of Professor Le Monnier, 
the Director of the Botanic Garden in Nancy, who most kindly 
co-operated in some of the experiments already described. 
Since 1892 he has annually raised several hundred plants of 
my breed, and cultivated them under the most favourable 
conditions. In November of that year he had 490 plants in 
the rosette-stage, of which 20-30 per cent, showed spiral 
phyllotaxis, and 60-65 P er cent, had three-leaved whorls, 
so that there were very few atavistic individuals. The pro- 
portion of twisted stems agrees with my own observations 
(see p. 404) ; but the number of plants with three-leaved whorls 
far exceeds anything that I have, even now, obtained in 
Amsterdam. Moreover, the spiral phyllotaxis appeared earlier 
in Nancy than in Amsterdam : it was detected there in many 
rosettes as early as July ; but with me, even in early sown 
plants, it could never be seen before August, and, in the case 
of April or May sowings, not before September. 
Professor Le Monnier had also the goodness to repeat at 
Nancy the experiment of sowing the seed immediately after 
it is ripe. This was done at the beginning of September, 1894 : 
the seedlings grew in the open, without any artificial heat, 
more rapidly and vigorously than they did at the same time 
in Amsterdam when all possible care was lavished upon them 
(see p. 415). Nevertheless in the following year they threw up 
