G8 



spike is branched and some of these branches have secondary 

 branches. The same collector has from Carlstadt, N. J., Typha lat- 

 ifolia, in which there are several small spikes arising side by side 

 froni the top of the culm, and which appear to be due to fission. 

 During the field meeting of the Club at New Dorp a few weeks ago 

 a large number of specimens of Flantago lanceolata, L., were observed, 

 in _ each of which there were from four to five long, thick sessile 

 spikes terminating the scape. Mr. N. L. Britton detected a spec- 

 imen of this species of plantain near New Dorp, the single spike 

 of which was subtended by a whorl of leafy bracts. On the same 

 excursion there was found in the woods, between New Dorp and 

 Garretsons, a^ double-flowered specimen of Rubiis cuneif alius. 



Dr. Gray's note in the Botanical Gazette on a three-flowered 

 bloodroot reminds me that a few years ago I found a specimen of 

 dandelion with two well-developed capitula at the apex of the same 

 scape. The scape in this instance was perfectly terete and smooth, 

 and exhibited none of those striae which usually accompany cases 

 of fasciation. ^ The specimen is now in the State herbarium. 



Fasciation in the peduncle of SopJiora, as in the example shown by 

 me at a recent meeting ot the Club, is not (as I am informed by the gen- 

 tleman who sent the specimen from Texas) uncommon in this plant 

 especially where the tree is in cultivation. It would be interesting 

 to know whether the buds with which the flattened and striated 

 peduncle is profusely covered produce deformed flowers. On 

 several occasions, and in different localities, I have observed an 

 example of fasciation in Erigeron Canadense, L., the stem of which 

 was completely flattened and expanded to a width of three q,uarters of 

 an inch, and terminated abruptly in a dense mass of leaves. This kind 

 of deformity, which occurs so frequently in some plants (as in the 

 cock's-comb for example) that it may be said to almost constitute 

 their natural state, is brought about, according to the views of Dr 

 Masters and others, by the adhesion of buds that have been pro- 

 duced in some numbers and in close proximity, through superabund- 

 ant nourishment— especially if this be accompanied by some check 

 or injury. 



Many interesting specimens illustrating the subject of Teratology, 

 and many observations in regard thereto, have been brought to the 

 attention of the Club from time to time, but unfortunately no ac- 

 count of them has ever been published. At the December, 1878, 

 meeting Dr. Gross exhibited a case of median floral prolification 

 in a rose, the prolonged axis of which bore a second full-blown flower 

 In a note to the Scientific American, Prof. F. L. Harvey of Fav- 

 etteville. Ark., reports an instance of this nature in which of two 

 proliferous roses on the same bush, the axis of one bore five' perfect 

 flower buds and that of the other, two. " Proliferous roses," says Dr 

 Masters, have a special interest, inasmuch as they show very con- 

 clusively that the so-called calyx-tube of these plants is merely a 

 concave and inverted thalamus, which, in prolified specimens, be- 

 comes elongated. Occasionally from the middle of the oute; sur- 

 face of the urn-shaped thalamus proceeds a perfect leaf, which 

 could hardly be produced from the united sepals or caly^-tube " 



