Tetraploid Diœcious Melandrium

Abstract

IN 1942 I published a short note¹ on a tetraploid plant of diœcious Melandrium found growing wild in Svalöv in southern Sweden. The specimen in question was a female individual growing between the fields behind the place where the new laboratories of chemistry and cytology were erected later. Its flowers were red, as in M. diœcum ssp. rubrum²; the leaves were thick, like those of the coastal ecotype of this subspecies. Morphological comparisons seemed to indicate that this plant was identical with the type described as M. crassifolium by Fries³, especially as regards the size of the cells and thickness of the leaves. It was furthermore said that the closer morphological and microscopical analyses of M. crassifolium and M. rubrum ssp. lapponicum Simmons indicated that those types were identical, thus indirectly stating a rather wide coastal and montane distribution of the tetraploid.