Observations on the Seedling Anatomy of 
Certain Sympetalae. 
II. Compositae. 
BY 
E. LEE, A.R.C.Sc., F.L.S., 
Department of Agriculture , University of Leeds. 
With eleven Diagrams and two Figures in the Text. 
Introduction. 
S INCE the present investigation was first undertaken two or three years 
ago, the problem of seedling anatomy has undergone considerable 
change. The stimulus which investigators received in the first years of the 
present century has resulted in the detailed examination of hundreds of 
seedlings from all the great groups of plants. The results obtained are for 
the most part qualitative, and have been used chiefly as evidence for or 
against certain phylpgenetic theories. Recently, however, Compton (1) has 
initiated another line of research in connexion with this subject. This 
author was able to show that in the Leguminosae the type of vascular 
anatomy in the seedling is correlated with the size of the latter, a result 
which, if it can be applied generally, goes a long way towards destroying 
any phylogenetic importance which seedling anatomy may have possessed. 
But in other groups examined by the present writer, while the type of 
seedling structure is generally correlated with the size of the seedling, there 
are not infrequently rather disconcerting exceptions, some of which will be 
noted later. 
In the first part of the present investigation (7) it was indicated that 
the possession of the Anemarrhena type of seedling structure does not 
necessarily involve affinity with the Liliaceae. The discovery of this type 
in the highly evolved Bignoniaceae appears considerably to weaken the 
phylogenetic theories of Miss Sargant (8, 9, 10, 11). The physiological 
aspect of the subject has recently been approached by Hill and de Fraine (6), 
who have attempted to show that the problem of seedling anatomy is largely, 
if not wholly, physiological, i. e. that the environment (using the term in its 
widest sense) is chiefly responsible for the amount of vascular tissue present 
in the seedling, and therefore, to a certain extent, for the number and kind 
of strands present and the type of seedling structure. 
[Annals of Botany, Vol. XXVIII. No. CX. April, 1914.] 
