HARDWICKE'S SC I EN CE-QOSSIP. 



271 



the flowers, and very often a second umbel gro^A-- 

 ing from the side or the middle of the earlier one, 

 I have noticed that (in my own garden) the variety 

 called "Stella" has exhibited this peculiarity to 

 the greatest extent: I wonder whether it has done 

 so elsewhere ? 



In the garden, several very proliferous cowslips 

 have been gathered, due probably to the richness of 

 the soil rather than to the v/et weather ; for they, 

 of course, flowered before the great bulk of the 

 rain had fallen ; and I notice that manure causes a 

 very luxuriant growtii in all species of Primula. I 

 have found several in which a second scape of 

 flow^ers grew from the middle of the umbel ; an 

 approach to the tiers of flowers seen in the new 

 Trimula Jcipomca. I found a similar monstrosity 

 in a flower of the Bardfield Oxlip (P. clatlor, Jacq.), 

 and in this specimen the scales below the umbel 

 had become partially leafy as well. It is probably 

 due to the wet weather that my plants of P. elatior 

 have never quite ceased flowering during the whole 

 of the summer. A great many of the scapes have 

 furnished examples of "recrudescence," a few 

 flowers having been produced amongst the rip(;ning 

 capsules ; but fresh flower-stalks have also con- 

 tinued to shoot up from the root, and at the time I 

 write (Oct. 4) I see there is one very pretty bunch 

 of flowers upon a last year's seedling plant.* The 

 Kev. H. Bramley-Moore sent me a plant which had 

 been brought from the Pyrenees ; the flowers upon 

 it were very nearly over ; but in my garden it soon 

 put up new and much larger leaves, and came into 

 flower a second time. 



A flower scajjc of the common Cowslip was very 

 curiously developed. The whole scape wr.s about 

 twenty inches long. At the height of ten inches 

 there grew a bunch of leaves, one being the ordinary 

 size of a cowslip leaf, the others much smaller. 

 Erom the axils of these leaves were produced a 

 second lateral scape and a single flower upon a 

 long pedicel, after the way of a primrose. The 

 lateral compound scape was at least eight inches in 

 length, and supported an umbel of nine flowers. 

 The principal umbel was in two tiers, the upper 

 tier being raised on a stalk a couple of inches long. 

 The whole of this exuberant flower bore no less 

 than thirty-eight pips. I have very little doubt 

 that if I had pegged down the flower-stalk, it 

 would have thrown out roots from the base of the 

 leaves, and 'become a separate plant, like a straw- 

 berry runner. I hesitated whether to do so, or to 

 cut it off for preservation ; but I cut it off at last, 

 and dried it. 



A couple of dried flowers of common primrose 



* Whilst I am correcting tliis on Nov. 15, the scape is still in 

 bloom, and two other oUl plants are flowering again, and 

 put ing up single flowers like primroses, as well as the ordi- 

 nary umhels. 



reached me in a roundabout way, without any par- 

 ticulars, so I do not know whether tlicy were 

 gathered this year or not ; but I suppose theui 

 to be products of 1872, as they were still of a 

 pretty good colour. In these flowers complete- 

 dialysis had taken place in the calyx, which 

 consisted of five distinct linear sepals. In a garden 

 polyanthus which I gathered in the public 

 park at Oldham, dialysis of the corolla had taken 

 place, and all the flowers were formed of separate 

 petals. A common out-of-door Scarlet Azalea has had 

 all its flowers split up into their component petals. 

 The flowers themselves were not more than half 

 their usual size, and not very numerous, the plant 

 having run to leaf instead of flower. 



As a probable result of wet weather, I have 

 noticed that trifoliar branches have been very fre- 

 quent ; I mean the production of three leaves in a 

 whorl, instead of two opposite leaves, and it has 

 even occurred in plants which usually have alter- 

 nate leaves. The malformation has been very 

 common in the Euchsia, and the flowers have also 

 hung in threes instead of in pairs. It is a decided 

 improvement in the fuchsia, and I should not 

 A\ onder if a strain of triple-flowered fuchsias could 

 be produced by "growing the plants from these 

 trifoliar branches. It is worth trying. The 

 Weifjelias also and the Scarlet Geraniums have 

 been very liable to produce three leaves in a 

 whorl. 



I have gathered twobi-pinnate leaves of "Jacob's 

 Ladder ",(Po/-e;«o;«'^.'->/i cceruleiini) from two separate 

 l^lants. 



One of the most interesting examples I have 

 seen this year is that of Ranudcidus acris, where 

 chorisis had taken place in most of the leaves, each 

 leaf being divided into three distinct leaflets upcu 

 long petioles, but all proceeding from one sheath 

 at the base ; and this abnormal form was found in 

 almost every plant for fifty or sixty yards along the 

 shady side of a hedge. 



One more example is worth recording, not as 

 being exactly abnormal, but as a curious result, 

 probably, of hybridization. In the very middle of 

 the heart of a cabbage that was brought in to be 

 cocked, there was a single streak of red cabbage 

 upon one of the leaves, looking like a splash of 

 piu-ple paint. If the plant had been left to run to 

 seed, and its inner leeves had resumed their green 

 colour, it would, perhaps, hardly have been noticed ; 

 but the contrast between the purple streak and the 

 delicately white leaf was very remarkable. The 

 plant showed no other stain in its pedigree, and 

 one could not help wondering Avhy a cross between 

 two such different varieties should only have be- 

 come apparent in such a small degree, and in this 

 particular way. 



Robert Holland. 



