52 
M 
open flowers; but the buds had enlarged and crimsoned in axillary 
clusters. 
In all cases the projecting corolla tube was closed by what 
appeared to be a conical cap of densely crowded crimson hairs, the 
whole calling to mind the capsule of a moss with hairy terminal 
calyptra. This hairy cap proved to be formed by the villous upper 
lip of the corolla densely folded over the lower lip, which was color- 
less save a spot of pink on its central lobe. The lips could be separ- 
ated by pressure. 
Within, the stamens and pistils, arrested in their forward growth 
in the blind tube, had turned and twisted themselves into a con- 
torted mass which perhaps would have pressed open the closed doors 
of their prison or burst its walls had it not been accommodated by 
the dilated throat of the corolla, which it will be remembered is a 
floral characteristic of the dead nettle and others of its family. 
The confined anthers were discharging pollen. This consisted, 
as normally, of innumerable granules, but the entire product of each 
anther was united into a single mass by a moisture which pervaded 
the imprisoned floral organs. These pollen-masses, even before they 
were free from the anthers, were found adhering to the confined 
stigmas, so that anthers and stigmas were frequently joined together 
by the viscid mass. 
In some of the flowers the imprisoned styles were double the 
length of the corolla, and in accommodating themselves to their 
cramped quarters had writhed into strangely twisted positions. In 
one case the slender style, finding its advance checked, had returned 
down the tubes, and applied its stigmas to the clustered anthers from 
above them. In another case the stigmas in their ascent had become 
entangled and detained among the anthers, causing the lengthening 
style to twist in a circle on itself in the lower part of the tube. 
Now I would ask are these flowers to be considered as truly 
cleistogamous. Are they not rather the usual flowers cleistogamous 
through retarted development; in other words, adaptively cleisto- 
gamous .? Plamly they are nothing more; they are the common 
flowers somewhat contracted and remaining closed. 
It would seem that the plant resorted to self-fertilization when, 
from adverse conditions, no better opportunity of reproduction 
offered itself. r^ j r 
Eugene P. BiCKNEi>L. 
Flora of Chenango County, N. Y.: some plants not previously 
reported from that region.* 
Ranunculus bulbosus, L.— Not common. 
Aconitum uncinaium, L. — A single specimen found on the bank of 
the Chenango River, near Oxford, Perhaps indigenous. 
Nuphar luteiim, Smith, var. pumilum, Preston. Not seen in 
flower, 
Cardamine pratensis, L.— Rather common 
Arabis perfoliata. Lam.— Occasional 
• Read before the Natural History Society of Cornell University 
