ii8 The Scottish Natiirahst. 



PHYTOLOGY, 



Notes on Abnormal Plants. — During a visit to Ardencaple Wood in 

 the early part of May this year, I came across one of the most remarkable 

 forms of the primrose which I have seen. The peculiarity consists in 

 the development of five narrow petaloid segments which alternate with, 

 the lobes of the corolla. These narrow segments are not organs simply 

 adherent to the inner surface of the corolla tube like metamorphoid, 

 stamens, but the bases form a continuous sheet of tissue with the petals. 

 At first sight the abnormality appears to resemble the " doubling " of the 

 primrose often seen in cultivation. In the ordinary double primrose, how- 

 ever, the additional petaloid lobes are metamorphoid stamens, and are op- 

 posite to, not alternate with, the lobes of the corolla. In this abnormality 

 the superadded petaloid pieces are simply interpetaline lobes, analogous to 

 the intersepaline lobes often seen in the' calyx of Co7npannla media. One 

 of the most interesting points connected with this is, that in the order 

 Prii7uilaceoc we have a genus in which interpetaline lobes naturally occur. 

 In this abnormal primrose we have then a deviation which imitates, so to 

 speak, the normal condition of an allied genus. Recently, one of my 

 students brought me two other abnormal specimens of the common 

 primrose. In the one the flower-stalk was elongated, so that we had the- 

 flowers situated upon a stalked umbel, instead of, as is the usual form, hav- 

 ing them sessile. Besides this all the separate flowers had the outer 

 floral envelope or calyx transformed into a yellow body resembling the true 

 corolla. The other variety had two separate corollas upon each flower- 

 stalk, one in the inside of the other, like the different parts of a telescope. 

 In this form, the calyx was of its normal shape and colour, otherwise the 

 flower resembled the first variety, where the calyx was coloured as in the 

 corolla. Besides this peculiarity, in both of the coi'ollas were five well 

 developed stamens ; but on dissecting the flower, I found only one pistil, 

 and this had been transformed into a leafy organ like what is often seen in 

 the double cherry. Two years since I gathered, in the island of Cumbrae, 

 some peculiar varieties of the common daisy {Bcllis) In the one form the 

 large white ray florets, instead of being strap-shaped or ligulate and female, 

 were tubular and neuter. In the ordinary double daisy the flowers are all 

 ligulate and female. The other variety had a number of separate heads all 

 springing from the same stalk, as in the hen and chicken daisy of the 

 garden. In the same place I gathered specimens of the C/irysant/ieviu?n 

 Ieucanther?ium, C. segeiiirn, and Matricaria inodora, in which the ray florets 

 had become large and tubular with a total loss of reproductive organs. I 

 have also plants of Scabiosa sticcisa and Matricaria i7todora, in which the 

 heads of the flowers were enlarged like the hen and chicken daisy. 

 Specimens of the latter of these plants were placed in the Glasgow- 

 Botanic Gardens, and in the summer of the following year the capitula had 

 all their flowers metamorphoid like the hen and chicken daisy. At first 

 sight the plant might have been mistaken for an unbelliferous plant. 

 In the early part part of this year I gathered a specrmen of the 

 marsh marigold ( Callha palustris) in Fossil Marsh, in which the leaf 

 that subtended one of the flowers had been transformed into a petal. 



