Notes. 
319 
based on anatomical features are open to suspicion. From the examination of 
specimens in my own collection, I have no doubt that quite heterogeneous stems are 
commonly confounded under the name Lepidophloios fidiginosus. Some, no doubt, 
like that originally identified by Messrs. Cash and Lomax 1 , really belong to 
Lepidophloios , but others are in all probability referable, like the specimen now 
described, to species of Lepidodendron. Internal structure is presumably of more 
importance than external configuration, and we may conjecture that the characters 
of the leaf-bases, on which systematists have been compelled to rely, possess but 
small taxonomic value. 
D. H. SCOTT. 
Kew. 
LIGNIFICATION OF PHLOEM IN HELIANTHUS. — Some observations on 
the phloem of the common sunflower were described in a note 2 3 published in 1902 ; 
the chief points were as follows. In an old stem, collected early in October of the 
previous year, it was found that lignification of the walls had taken place in a con- 
siderable number of sieve-tubes and companion-cells, as well as in many of the 
phloem-rays, and in the whole of the pericycle ; the rather surprising result was also 
obtained, that the proteid-contents of some sieve-tubes and companion-cells gave 
lignin-reactions 8 , especially in the root, where lignification of the walls of these 
elements was not observed. 
These results were based on an examination of two plants only, and required to 
be supplemented by further observations. For this purpose additional material was 
collected in 1902 for future investigation, and included eleven plants of Helianthus 
annuus , L., one plant of H. tuberosus , L., and stems of H. laetijlorus , Pers., and 
H. decapetalus , L. All of these except the specimen of H. tuberosus were grown at 
Kew. The object of the present note is to give the results of the examination of 
this material. 
The lignification previously observed appears to be of general occurrence in old 
stems of the sunflower, since the walls of a large number of sieve-tubes and other 
elements of the phloem proved to be lignified in all the specimens of this species ; the 
same was observed in the three other species of Helianthus mentioned above. The 
contents of numerous sieve-tubes and companion-cells were lignified in the root of all 
the sunflower-plants and in that of H. tuberosus 4 . Thus the previous observations 
are confirmed for the sunflower, and extended to other species of the same genus. 
Of the eleven plants of the sunflower, nine were grown close together and at 
first treated alike, but two of them were transferred to a green-house in August, and 
from two other plants the different capitula were successively removed before reaching 
1 W. Cash and J. Lomax, On Lepidophloios and Lepidodendron , Report of the British Associa- 
tion (Leeds), 1890, p. 810. 
2 Boodle, On lignification in the phloem of Helianthus annuus , Annals of Botan}', vol. xvi, 
p. 180. 
3 The different l-eagents used are mentioned on p. 181, loc. cit. 
4 The roots of II, laetijlorus and //. decapetalus were not examined. 
