162 



HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



[July 1, 1870. 



BOTANY. 



Mutation of Species.— A very curious fact has 

 just come to my notice. A correspondent kindly 

 sent me, through the Editor of Science-Gossip, 

 some abnormal flowers of Fuchsia, and with them 

 some flowers of a species of Eritillary, to which the 

 following description was appended:— "I enclose 

 also two Eritillaries, to show you the effect produced 

 by either change of soil or transplantation to a gar- 

 den. These Eritillaries are the descendants of some 

 sent to us many years ago (about ten, I should think) 

 from the meadows near Oxford. They were then 

 mottled in the usual way, in a pattern of small 

 squares of darker and lighter colour, like a small 

 chessboard, and were, to the best of my recollection, 

 exactly like some I have lately seen in Berkshire, in 

 meadows near the Lodden ; of the same colour in- 

 side and outside, and that of a richer hue than the 

 outside of these flowers now present {i.e., with more 

 crimson in it). They have increased with us very 

 freely, but have all changed in the same manner." 

 On opening the box I saw at a glance that the 

 flowers sent were not those of our wild Fritillaria 

 meleagris, but apparently those of F. Pyrenaica, a 

 species only found wild upon the Continent, but 

 which is sometimes seen here in the gardens of the 

 curious. It is not by any means so ornamental a 

 plant as our meadow Eritillary, from which it is 

 readily distinguished both by the form of its flowers, 

 which are more campanulate, having the tips of the 

 perianth slightly recurved ; and by its colour, which 

 instead of being pink and chequered, is of a dull 

 brownish purple, with a sort of bloom on the out, 

 side, and the tips of the petals tinged with yellow. 

 In Cheshire, I see the plant occasionally in gardens 

 and I have heard it called "widows," which is a 

 name given in various places to several kinds of 

 dark-coloured and dull-looking flowers. I thought 

 it possible that my correspondent might have had 

 plants of F. Pyrenaica as well as of F. meleagris, 

 and that they had become mixed or crossed, or that 

 the latter had been lost ; but, on inquiry, I find this 

 not the case. My correspondent says : — " My 

 father, who is interested and observant about his 

 garden, confirms my belief that we had no Fritillaries 

 at all here until a friend at Oxford sent us a supply 

 from the meadows there." She further adds that 

 "several have been planted out in the pleasur- 

 grounds, some of them in sunless and damp situa- 

 tions, and all have changed in the same manner. 

 The only other Eritillaries we have are white ones, 

 sent, together with the coloured ones, from Oxford ; 

 and a few (also white) which I brought the other 

 day from Berkshire." . ..." The white, so far as 

 I am aware, remain unchanged." I feel quite satis- 

 fied in my own mind that no mistake has been 

 made; but as this is a very strange and unusual 



circumstance, I shall look forward to a fresh supply 

 (and a supply of fresher flowers) another year for 

 further observation.— Robert Holland, June 3, 

 1S70. 



Thistles are making their way at the Antipodes. 

 A correspondent of the Otago Daily Times, who, 

 during one day's journey, met with a few thistles 

 growing here and there by the wayside, on the next 

 day entered a district in which, for over forty miles, 

 this acclimatised weed seemed to have fairly taken 

 possession of the land. "Now, aesthetically con- 

 sidered," this correspondent observes, " a thistle is 

 a tolerably handsome object, and has an air of inde- 

 pendence about it possessed, perhaps, in an equal 

 degree by no other plant ; but there is a place for 

 everything, and, no doubt, the farmers in this part 

 of the country have every reason to complain of the 

 apathy which allowed the thistle to become such a 

 nuisance. Spreading from a small point to the 

 north of Hampden, where it is said to have been 

 introduced by a flock of sheep, the thistle is now to 

 be found all over the valleys of the Shag, Otepopo ) 

 and Kakanui, comprising some of the finest agricul- 

 tural land in the colony; and not oidy in the 

 valleys, but to the tops of the hills, not a spur or a 

 gully being without its hundreds. This nuisance 

 has now reached a point at which all the thistle pre- 

 vention ordinances in the world will fail to prevent 

 its spread. Slowly, but surely, it will work its way 

 to the southward and westward, until it has over- 

 run the province.— Gardeners' Chronicle, June, 



1870. 



Irregular Primroses— In Science-Gossip for 

 last month (p. 139) YV. II. Grattann mentions his 

 having discovered at Torquay a flower of the Prim- 

 rose with eight petals. During the spring of last 

 year, when in Somersetshire, I constantly came 

 across primrose-flowers having sepals, petals, and 

 stamens varying in number from six to twelve, 

 many of them with two distinct pistils. The sepals, 

 petals, and stamens in the same flower did not 

 always correspond in number ; for instance, in one 

 case there were nine sepals, ten petals, and eleven 

 stamens, and in another, ten sepals, nine petals, and 

 nine stamens. It may further be remarked that those 

 flowers with two pistils, in many cases, had fewer 

 sepals, petals, and stamens than those in which only 

 one pistil was present ; thus a flower with seven 

 sepals, petals, and stamens, had two distinct pistils, 

 whilst one with eight sepals, petals, and^ stamens 

 had only one. In another specimen with eight 

 sepals, petals, and stamens, the stigma was bilobed. 

 — /. F. D. 



The Event op the Month is the publication 

 of Dr. Hooker's "Student's Elora," of which 

 botanists are speaking in glowing terms. 



