HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



257 



result of the compound Compositce was a very curious 

 corkscrew arrangement. 



Mr. G. E. Cox, of Leyton, writes: "The great 

 extent to which this eccentricity of growth sometimes 

 extends is well illustrated by the photograph enclosed. 

 The bulb, a very fine one, threw up two stems, the 

 second exhibiting the same peculiarity in a much less 

 marked degree. The one I photographed bore forty- 

 seven flowers, which were, however, somewhat small, 

 the extreme width of the stem was three and a 

 half inches." 



Mr. A. Mayfield, of Norwich, sent a specimen 

 illustrative of the following note : " Upon a dahlia 

 plant in my garden there are three or four flowers 



readily broke apart. There was but one stalk and 

 calyx to it, however, and its sepals (twenty in 

 number) were regularly arranged in a single whorl 

 reflected upon itself by the backward pressure of the 

 fruit. I am aware that double strawberries are no 

 novelty, but I thought that this well-developed 

 quadruple one was rare enough to regard as an 

 oddity." 



The cultivation of a quadruplicate strawberry 

 variety may be worth further attention ; for any 

 horticulturist who can make four strawberries to 

 grow where only one grew before, would not only be 

 a benefactor to his kind, but would put money in his 

 pocket as well ! 



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111 



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Fig. 143. — Monstrosity in Lily of the Nile [Arum.). 



with double crowns, and another plant has a great 

 many flowers with an abnormal growth of the 

 bracts." 



"Hulwidgeon" writes: " I am not sufficient of a 

 botanist nor enough employed in flower-culture to 

 be able to detect such floral freaks as I might other- 

 wise observe ; but some curiosities indicative of the 

 sportiveness of Nature in different stages of vegetal 

 life have been striking enough to attract my attention 

 during the summer. I send you a note or two of 

 them in case they may also interest you. One was a 

 strangely-developed strawberry plucked at Wcolwich 

 last June, of which I send you the original drawings 

 that I made at the time. The pulp had grown into 

 the distinct form of four (so-called) "berries," which 



" Again : I have a large number of sunflowers of 

 the common annual variety in my garden, and I have 

 been struck with the remarkable diversity in appear- 

 ance of their flower-heads. In some that swollen 

 portion of the stem which forms the calyx, and 

 embraces the flower, is bare, except for the well- 

 known circles of sepals (lamellar scales, I believe they 

 are called), which constitute its fringe. On others, 

 however, appear what seem to be misplaced sepals 

 more or less approaching in figure to the ordinary 

 foliage. Some of the blooms appear thus encircled 

 by a ring of leaves, and, on cutting off" one head, I 

 found no less than seven petiolate leaves dependent 

 from its back. Others contain a less number, and 

 one, still blowing (ist September), sustains two of 



