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The case of Viola may be cited because of its difficulty. The 
leafy stemmed Violets baffle us because of the angle of divergence 
being nearly that of a semicircle; the rosettes of the stemless 
species are not easily resolved, but in some cases, as V. lanceolata, 
etc., they seem to be antidromic. The flower on each peduncle 
being solitary, we can get no aid from the anthotaxy. The spur 
of the flowers furnishes a landmark, but whether this is anti- 
dromic or only of recent origin I have not been able to prove. 
If you hold a violet-flower with the spur towards you, in some 
cases the spur will protrude to your right of the pedicel, in other 
cases it will protrude towards your left. 
This distinctive peculiarity cannot arise from the direct in- 
fluence of sunlight, as it is shown by the very young flower-bud. 
I have not succeeded in correlating it with antidromic phyllotaxy ; 
but generally all the flowers of one plant appear to be of the same 
caste, and the flowers of different plants from the same rootstock 
appear to differ. But the case is complex; thus a fleshy root- 
stock of V. pedata had four fleshy branches, each of them bearing 
a number of plants; branch 1 and 2 had each three flowers, two 
of them with spur to right, one with spur to left, and phyllotaxy 
dextrose ; branch 3 was in all respects the converse of the others, 
and branch 4 was small and bore no flowers. Possibly the quasi- 
antidromy of these may be of the same character as in A/idiscus, 
where the same branch may have flowers twisted in contrary di- 
rections; this explanation may apply also to the cases reported to 
me by my friend, Arthur K. Harrison, of Lebanon Springs, N. Y., 
about the catkins of birches and Osérya, of which he writes: 
“Whenever they occur in pairs it is the rule for one to be dextral 
and the other sinistral, the whorl in each rolling outward from the 
axis as viewed from the upper (inner) side of the branch; where 
there are three or more aments the central (end) one whorls some- 
times one way, sometimes the other, depending, I think, upon — 
which side of the branch they originate from,” and he thinks the 
same rule applies to all species bearing terminal clustered catkins. 
In my paper of November last I referred tentatively to some 
facts that seem to introduce the Ferns into the realm of antidromy. 
This view is confirmed by observations on the vernation of Cin- 
namon-Osmund. The fronds, in starting in the center of the 
