1905]  Leavitt,— Translocation of Characters in Plants I5 
I have examined the tentacles with care and ascertained that they 
have the microscopical structure of tentacles of the foliage leaves. 
Those of the disc terminate in capitate glands; those of the margin, 
in linear or spatulate expansions supporting the elongated glands 
on the upper surfaces. ‘Thus the state of affairs found in the vege- 
tative leaf ıs exactly reproduced. Here again to be borne in mind 
is a detailed correspondence between abnormal characters of the 
modified member and normal characters of another part of the 
plant. 
A parallel anomaly in D. intermedia was described by Planchon in 
his monograph of the Droseraceae.! Carpels became leaf-like in the 
way described above for D. rotundifolia. In one case a foliar mem- 
ber of the flower evinced its carpellary nature in a terminal style-like 
structure, cleft and bearing stigmas. Planchon observed anomalous 
structures which seemed intermediate between hairs [tentacles] and 
ovules; that is, they combined features peculiar to ovules with others 
characteristic of Droseraceous tentacles. Similarly formations min- 
gling the characters of tentacle and style were found. Discussing the 
meaning of these confused forms Planchon says: “Although con- 
clusions as to the normal state of organs, to be drawn from teratolog- 
ical facts, are more liable than any others to take the turn which the 
imagination would lend them, it is none the less certain that the study 
of them alone is able to give the key to a thousand interesting prob- 
lems. To say, for example, that hair [tentacle], ovule, and style are 
(in certain cases) different names for the same organ, of which the 
form and functions are modified, is to advance a kind of paradox; 
and yet this is nothing less than one of the consequences of the nat- 
ural facts which have just held our attention." 
SAXIFRAGA VIRGINIENSIS.— For several seasons Mr. J. H. Sears of 
the Peabody Academy of Sciences at Salem, Massachusetts, has 
found at a certain station in Essex a singular form or variety of the 
common Saxifraga in which the petals are replaced by stamens. 
Normal specimens have ten stamens and five petals. Mr. Sears's 
plants have fifteen stamens, of which five stand in the places of the 
absent petals. In current phrase petals have been transformed into 
stamens. This kind of abnormality, termed by teratologists stami- 
nody, is of rather rare occurrence. One of the few reported cases is 
1 Ann. Sci. Nat. Bot. sér. 3, 9:84. 
