190 Rhodora [SEPTEMBER 
received the plant carefully pressed, with the rhizome packed in 
earth in a small box. The latter I turned over to Mr. Robert Cameron 
of the Harvard Botanic Garden, who planted it in an appropriate 
place where its development will be watched with much interest. 
Mr. Putnam sent with the plant a photograph which he calls “A 
Vine Maple thicket, the setting in which the Trillium was found.” 
The scene in a truly tropical one. The tree is Acer circinatum Pursh. 
The abnormality in the Trillium is confined to the petals, stamens 
and pistil The leaves are normal, in a single whorl of three, 
rhombic-ovate, and averaging 14 cm. long and 10 cm. broad. The 
peduncle is 7.5 cm. long and the sepals are narrowly lanceolate, 3.8 
em., 3.7 cm., 3.7 em. long, and 8 mm. wide. 
The petals reach the extraordinary number of twenty-four. 
Eighteen are in regular alternating whorls of three, the Ist, 3d and 
5th and the 2d, 4th and 6th whorls being superposed upon each other. 
The six petals in the center of the flower form a partially closed cluster, 
their crumpled and undeveloped character preventing a complete 
diagnosis of their exact position and shape. The length of the longest 
one is 1.8 cm., and they apparently alternate with the others in 
groups of three each in regular order. 
I took careful measurements of the first 18 petals. The same 
order is preserved throughout, the first figures, in whorls 1, 3 and 5 
of 3 petals each, referring to the petals superposed upon each other, 
and so on. The same is true of whorls 2, 4 and 6, and also of the 
descriptions of the petals. The following is the table of measure- 
ments of the petals: 
lst whorl, 3.8 cm., 3.8 cm., 3.8 cm. long. 
2.3 cm., 2.3 cm., 2.3 cm. broad. 
2d whorl, 4.2 cm., 4.2 cm., 4.2 cm. long. 
2.7 cm., 2.7 cm., 2.7 cm. broad. 
3d whorl, 4.4 cm., 4.2 cm., 4.1 cm. long. 
2.5 cm., 2.2 cm., 2.5 em. broad. 
4th whorl, 3.8 cm., 3.8 cm., 3.5 cm. long. 
2.0 cm., 2.2 cm., 2.0 em. broad. 
5th whorl, 3.6 cm., 3.4 cm., 3.0 em. long. 
1.8 cm., 1.5 em., 1.7 cm. broad. 
6th whorl, 3.3 cm., 3.1 cm., 3.1 em. long. 
1.9 cm., 1.9 cm., 1.7 cm. broad. 
