IN PLANTS HAVING IRREGULAR COROLLAS. 407 
have examined plates of a very large number of species, and have 
found no representation of any flower corresponding to onr second 
type. Mr. J. G. Baker, whom we have consulted on this subject, 
further informs us that he has never seen a wild plant having 
the second type of flower. Dr. M. Foster also has not met with 
this form in the species cultivated by him. Under these eircum- 
stances it seems nearly certain that such a form occurs very 
rarely if at all in wild species, and that at all events it is not the 
norma] form of flower in the parents of gandavensis. 
It is nevertheless unfortunate that there is doubt as to the 
actual parentage of gandavensis. Herbert * states that it is 
descended from G. natalensis (=psittacinus) and oppositiflorus ; 
while Van Houtte, in his Catalogue for 1844, states that it was 
obtained from psittacinus and cardinalis. Herbert states both 
here and in * Amaryllidacez,' p. 365, that he was unable to obtain 
a cross between psittacinus and several other species of which 
cardinalis was one. Mr. Baker, to whom we are further in- 
debted for information on this subject, inclines to the view that 
Herbert was mistaken. 
In all figures of these flowers which we have seen they are 
represented as of the first type, and, as we have stated, there is 
no record of flowers of the second type borne by them. It is 
therefore very singular that Eichler t gives the second form of 
symmetry as the normal form for Gladiolus in general, and for 
G. cardinalis in particular. As all the other authorities consulted 
agree in the absence of flowers of the second type in this plant, 
we are disposed to think that Eichler must have taken his 
account from a garden-hybrid. It is not a little surprising that 
he should have made no meution of the first type of flower, 
which is not only the normal form of wild species, but is also ou 
the whole the commoner even in the garden-hybrids. 
The only plate in which we have found flowers of the second 
type represented is the coloured plate accompanying the ‘ Gar- 
dener’s Chronicle’ for Sept. 9, 1882. This illustration gives an 
excellent representation of two spikes, each bearing the second 
type of flower. For reference to this plate we are indebted to 
Dr. Masters. No sufficient description accompanies this plate, 
but there is no reasonable doubt that the plants showu are 
* Journ. Hort. Soc. 1847, p. 89. 
+ * Bliithendiagramme, i. p. 161. 
LINN. JOURN.— BOTANY, VOL. XXVIII. 2L 
