100 
THE JOURNAL OF BOTANY 
of southern Europe where there is sufficient rainfall. There the daisy 
can have its natural unimpeded development, becoming caulescent 
and more or less branched in the later stages of its yearly growth, 
especially where the soil is free. It is under such conditions that 
Dr. Enrico Carano of the Botanic Institute of Home, assisted by a 
lady colleague, Dr. Valeria Bambacioni, has during the last few years 
submitted the daisy to a thorough scientific investigation, including 
experimental hybridisation with the allied B. annua and B. silveslris, 
and with special reference to the supposed species or subspecies 
B. hybrida Ten. A brief summary of their results appeared in the 
Atti R. Acc. Lincei of Rome, xxxi. ser. 5, in August 1922, under the 
title “ Sopra alcuni risultati di ricerche colturali e di esperimenti di 
ibridazione nel genere Beilis ” ; a full account of their researches has 
now been published in Annali di Botanica, xvi. fasc. 1 (Jan. 1923), as 
“ Ricerche sul genere Beilis L. con speciale riguardo alia B. hybrida 
Ten.” 
The following are the principal conclusions arrived at, which, I 
may say, are in almost complete agreement with opinions which I had 
already formed from a much more superficial observation of living as 
well as dried specimens from different countries :— 
(1) if we examine the rosettes of leaves (excluding those of 
seedlings) at the commencement of the year’s growth, two apparently 
different conditions become apparent. In the one, several rosettes 
are connected by a subterranean and often much branched rhizome ; 
in the other the rosettes are isolated, each with its own tuft of roots, 
among which, however, may easily be seen the cicatrix of an old 
rhizome, that has rotted away after yielding up its reserve of nourish¬ 
ment to the separate individuals thus formed. The rhizome itself 
does not originate underground, but, as the cicatrices of former leaves 
that can be traced on it show, is formed by surviving portions of the 
aerial stem or stems of previous years, which by some agency have 
become buried in the soil. 
(2) The first flower to be thrown up by each rosette is central and 
terminates the scape or peduncle that carries it. Ramification then 
proceeds by the development of vegetative shoots from the buds in 
the axils of the rosette leaves. These shoots are markedly plagio- 
tropic, and so tend to grow more or less horizontally, spreading in a 
circle, with noticeable internodes, in contrast to the exceedingly short 
stem of the primary central rosette. Each of the axillary shoots 
carries in turn at its extremity a second rosette of leaves, from the 
centre of which springs a single terminal flowering peduncle. Then 
from the axils of these secondary rosettes there issues, in strongly 
developed plants, another set of axillary shoots, ending in their turn 
with a rosette of leaves and a central flowering peduncle; this process 
may continue indefinitely, according to the vegetative vigour of the 
individual. In the loose but rich volcanic soil of the Roman Cam- 
pagna and of the neighbourhood of Naples—districts both of them 
blessed with a high rainfall—this process is far more striking and 
more easily observed than in drier or closer soils, or in less stimulating 
climates. Such are the plants in which Tenore thought that he saw 
a distinct species to which be gave the name B. hybrida , fancying it 
