330 Nutrition and Selection. 
The rule for ordinary branching is that the anomaly 
diminishes with the higher orders of branching, omitting 
from consideration, of course, the strengthening and 
repetitional shoots. Every one knows the beautiful case 
of Myosotis azorica Victoria (M. alpestris var.}, which 
has been on the market for many years, and was de- 
scribed by MAGNUS. 1 This heritable anomaly has a very 
much extended flower at the top of its main axis, often 
consisting of more than 10 and sometimes over 20 petals 
in one row. The number of sepals and stamens has cor- 
respondingly increased. The subsequent flowers of the 
inflorescence have become much less compound and the 
number of petals gradually diminishes during the course 
of the flowering period, until finally only pentamerous 
and hexamerous flowers are produced. Chrysanthemum 
mo dor um plenissimum manifests a similar periodicity, 
and the number of petals in Ficaria ranunculoides and 
Centaurca Cyanns are in the same manner dependent on 
the order of branching. 2 Veronica Buxbaumii, according 
to BATESON and PERTZ, bears the largest number of 
anomalous flowers at the beginning of the flowering pe- 
riod, that is to say, just before it is at its height. 3 Myo- 
surus minimus bears the more single flowers the weaker 
these are. 4 A number of similar cases have alreadv been 
/ 
collected by HUNTING in the seventeenth century, and 
recently by BURKILL amongst others. 5 
1 Vcrhandl. d. Bot. Ver. d. Prov. Brandenburg, XXIV, 1882, p. 
119, PI IV. 
2 J. MAC LEOD, Botanisch Jaabock, Gent, 1899, Vol. XI. 
3 W. BATESON and Miss PERTZ, Notes on the Inheritance of Vari- 
ation in the Corolla of Veronica Buxbaumii, Proceed. Cambridge 
Phil. Soc., X, Part 2, p. 78 (1898). 
4 H. MULLER, Nature, Vol. XXVI, 1882, p. 81. 
5 A. MUNTING, Waare oeffcninge, 1671; J. H. BURKILL, Limiacan 
Soc. Journ. Bot., Vol. XXXI, 1895, p. 216. 
