1863 1866] PELORIA 335 



and purple and secreting nectar ; the pistil is straight, and Letter 660 

 the hood slips off either way. In short, these flowers have the 

 exact structure of Dielytra and Adlumia. Seeing this, I must 

 look at the case as one of reversion ; though it is one of the 

 spreading of irregularity to two sides. 



As columbine \_Aquilegid\ has all petals, etc., irregular, and 

 as monkshood \Aconitum\ has two petals irregular, may not 

 the case given by Seringe, and referred to [by] you, 1 by you be 

 looked at as reversion to the columbine state ? Would it be 

 too bold to suppose that some ancient Linaria, or allied form, 

 and some ancient Viola, had all petals spur-shaped, and that 

 all cases of " irregular peloria " 2 in these genera are reversions 

 to such imaginary ancient form ? 



It seems to me, in my ignorance, that it would be advan- 

 tageous to consider the two forms of Peloria when occurring 

 in the very same species as probably due to the same general 

 law viz., one as reversion to very early state, and the other 

 as reversion to a later state when all the petals were irregu- 

 larly formed. This seems at least to me a priori a more 

 probable view than to look at one form of Peloria as due to 

 reversion and the other as something distinct. 3 



What do you think of this notion ? 



To P. H. Gosse. 4 Letter 661 



The following was written in reply to Mr. Gosse's letter of May 3oth 

 asking for a solution of his difficulties in fertilising Stanhopea. It is 

 reprinted by the kind permission of Mr. Edmund Gosse from his delight- 

 ful book, the Life of Philip Henry Gosse, London, 1890, p. 299. 



1 " Seringe describes and figures a flower [of Acomtum\ wherein 

 all the sepals were helmet-shaped," and the petals similarly affected. 

 Maxwell Masters, op. tit., p. 260. 



3 " ' Regular or Congenital Peloria ' would include those flowers 

 which, contrary to their usual habit, retain throughout the whole of their 

 growth their primordial regularity of form and equality of proportion. 

 ' Irregular or Acquired Peloria,' on the other hand, would include those 

 flowers in which the irregularity of growth that ordinarily characterises 

 some portions of the corolla is manifested in all of them." Maxwell 

 Masters, loc. cit. 



3 See Maxwell Masters, Vegetable Teratology, 1869, p. 235 ; Variation 

 of Animals and Plants, Ed. II., Vol. II., p. 33. 



4 Philip Henry Gosse (1810-88) was an example of that almost extinct 

 type a naturalist with a wide knowledge gained at first hand from 

 nature as a whole. This width of culture was combined with a severe. 



