206 Observation of the Origin of J'arietics. 
pollen is poorly developed and the capsule is practically 
atrophied ; but not to such an extent that fertile seeds 
are never produced, as some investigators seem to think, 1 
for some attempts to harvest seed have been successful. 
\VILLDENOW records an experiment in which such seed 
has given rise almost exclusively to peloric plants. 2 
The Pcloria, or Linaria vulgaris peloria is character- 
ized by the fact that all its flowers are peloric. This 
character is, it is true, subject to considerable fluctuating 
variability, especially in the number and degree of devel- 
opment of the spurs. But I never found normal one- 
spurred flowers amongst them, although since 1894 I 
was able to observe in my cultures several hundreds of 
peloric flowers every year, and in favorable years even 
many thousands of them. 
Besides this Pcloria, as already stated, there are some- 
times found on the ordinary Linaria vulgaris isolated 
peloric structures, which are subject to a high degree of 
fluctuating variability (Fig. 41). The most usual case 
is a single flower on a plant which does not bear another 
afterwards during the whole course of the summer. 
Sometimes I found 2 or even 3 peloric flowers on the 
same plant, both in the wild and in the cultivated state, 
but seldom a larger number. It often happens that an 
individual which has produced the abnormality in its first 
year will not produce a single one in the second, although 
it branches more freely and bears many more flowers ; 
on the other hand the abnormality sometimes reappears. 
Such isolated pelorias are not limited to any particular 
position r although in my garden they usually occurred 
1 VERLOT, Production et fixation des varictcs, p. 90. 
' DE CANDOLLE, Physiologic vcgctale, II, p. 692. My experience is 
in full agreement with that of WILLDENOW. (See p. 216.) 
3 See PENZIG, loc. cit., p. 195 
