102 



HAEDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GO SSIP. 



[May 1, 1S69. 



pended itself in forming a bunch of leaves. Others 

 were found -which had flowers of the usual size ; but 

 there was a decided tendency to form numerous 

 leaves under them. Mr. Britten tells me that Cen- 

 taurea scabiosa also frequently produces small 

 abortive flower-heads at all times of the year. 



Fig. 66. Knapweed. 



I have seen a great many plants of the double 

 Garden Eeverfew (Pyrethrum Parthenium) pro- 

 ducing monstrous flowers during the last autumn ; 

 some, where the bracts of the universal calyx were 

 a good deal enlarged ; others, where small leaves 

 were mixed up with the florets ; and several in 

 which the bracts formed a complete rosette of pin- 

 natifld leaves under the flower. I think that the 

 past season was favourable to abnormal develop- 

 ment in compound flowers, for I observed several 

 daisies in which the same kind of growth had taken 

 place. 



Mr. Britten sent me last summer some very 

 curious specimens of Poppy (Papaver Rliceas), in 

 which the calyx was persistent, and in which bracts 

 gradually merged into sepals. Some of them had 

 a calyx of three leaves, like that of P. orientale, 

 the great scarlet perennial Poppy of old-fashioned 

 gardens. The specimens came to me so much the 

 worse for their long journey by post, that I could 

 not make a satisfactory drawing of them. A poppy, 

 apparently very similar, was described by Mr. 

 Britten in the first volume of Science-Gossip, 

 p. 22S. It would-be interesting to know whether 



these specimens and the one he described were 

 gathered in the same place ; for if they were, the 

 form has probably been perpetuated from seed. 

 Perhaps Mr. Britten will kindly inform us. 



Mr. Charles Bailey described to me a very re- 

 markable white Foxglove that he had lately seen. 

 The upper half of the flower-stem was arrested in 

 its growth, so that the flowers formed a dense head. 

 Each flower was split on the upper side, and was 

 opened out into a flat petal, on the face of which 

 were the four stamens. The flowers were disposed 

 with such regularity that they formed a beautiful 

 rosette, resembling a double Camellia ; whilst the 

 structure of this curious monstrosity was almost 

 exactly the same as we see in an ordinary flower of 

 the order Composite, and might serve very well to 

 illustrate the way in which a compound flower is 

 formed. 



Mr. Grindon showed me, last autumn, some 

 flowers of the wild Guelder Pose {Viburnum Opulus) 

 which he had gathered, in which two little green 

 leaves grew from the centre of each of the barren 

 florets, like those usually seen in the centre of the 

 flowers of double-blossomed Cherry. In the second 

 volume of Science-Gossip, p. 9, 1 mentioned that 

 these capillary leaflets in the double-blossomed 

 Cherry often enclosed a second set of petals. This 

 was observed in a very marked degree last spring, 

 when the interior flowers were the rule rather than 

 the exception, and where, in many cases, they 

 opened out completely, and formed new flowers 

 after the petals of the exterior ones were faded and 

 were dropping off. 



Mr. Arthur B. Cole has kindly placed at my 

 service some notes and drawings of very remarkable 

 deformities that he has met with in various species 

 of Orchis. These monstrosities are especially inter- 

 esting as they have a bearing upon, and help to 

 elucidate, the very obscure and paradoxical mor- 

 phology of that order of plants. The usual struc- 

 ture ,of an orchis-flower should first be understood 

 by a reference to the following diagram (fig. 67). 



pO 



O p 



^-x) 



Fig. 6". 



There are three sepals, S'; two petals, P ; and a 

 third petal wdiich differs greatly in appearance in 

 different species, and is called the labelhtm, or lip, 

 L. In the centre is a column, C, consisting of 

 stamens and pistil welded together, as it were, and 



