46 MR. H. N. RIDLEY'S TERATOLOGICAL 
compound spikes a similar monstrosity occurs ; in these, however, 
the peduncle is very short, and hardly protrudes from the utricle. 
2. A Case of Pistillody in Lolium perenne, Linn.—The subject of 
this note was found growing in a grass-field near Hendon ; a con- 
siderable number of plants, all similarly affected, formed a conspi- 
cuous patch among the normal form, from which they were 
distinguished by the rather distant, much swollen spikelets. On 
opening a flower, no reproductive organs were visible, their place 
being taken by a number of glumes or glume-like bodies ; the 
most exterior of these, which corresponded in position to the sta- 
mens, were green linear glumes, the apices of which were abruptly 
bent down, and terminated by a number of short hairs having 
the nodulose character of the stigmatic hairs (fig. 24). Inte- 
rior in position to these were one or more conduplicate glumes 
bent laterally in a zigzag manner ; these bore similar but longer 
hairs upon the midrib and margins, and in greatest quantity upon 
the apex (fig. 2 B). Inaddition to these there was a tuft of about 
six small oval transparent leaves, each of which was terminated 
by a single stigmatie arm—in fact, single carpellary leaves without 
any trace of ovules (fig. 2 c). 
The specimens illustrate clearly the mode of transition from 
glumes into pistils. I can find no similar* case recorded; but 
Gen. Munro mentions a case (Linn. Trans. xxvii. p. 7) in which 
the points of the anthers of a bamboo were tipped with im- 
Fig. 2. 
A. Monstrous stamen of Lolium perenne. 
B and C. Modified glumes replacing the reproductive organs in Lolium 
perenne. 
* For an analogous, not identieal, case, see Journ, Linn, Soc. vii, p. 121. 
