290 Tr ansae tio ns. — Botany. 



lamina, though often stained with purple, especially on teeth ; 

 petiole from half to three-quarters the length of lamina, flat on 

 upper surface, connate and sheathing just at base, which is 

 slightly swollen and often purple-stained. 



Stem in plant one year old green, often stained with purple 

 near nodes, terete, slightly hairy below with whitish hairs 

 pressed upwards against the stem ; hairs above in two oppo- 

 site rows, those on one internode alternating with those on 

 the next above; internodes often 1*5 mm. long, but variable 

 in length. 



Veronica armstrongii is a shrub reaching barely 1 m. in 

 height. Its very much reduced leaves are so closely com- 

 pressed to the stem above and so intimately united with the 

 bark below that the plant appears at a cursory glance as if 

 leafless. Diels* has called attention to our want of know- 

 ledge as to the morphological significance of these reduced 

 leaves, and that it is important to determine whether they are 

 leaf-blades or phyllodes. Certainly, so far as their appear- 

 ance goes they might very well be the latter. But a study of 

 the seedling form shows a great many transitional changes 

 between petiolate deeply toothed leaves and such as are 

 sessile and entire (see figs. 27-34). The toothing gradually 

 becomes more and more shallow and the teeth fewer in 

 number, until finally they are altogether wanting, and we 

 have only an entire leaf such as is shown in fig. 33. Some- 

 times the last remaining tooth may be quite close to the 

 leaf-base. Although I have not as yet seen gradations be- 

 tween leaves such as those in fig. 33 and adult leaves, yet I 

 think the above shows fairly conclusively that the latter are 

 reduced leaf-blades, quite sessile, and with a very wide leaf- 

 base, and that there is no reason to think them to be 

 phyllodes. 



If we look upon the juvenile plant as the ancestral form, it 

 seems very clear that this latter must have been an inhabitant 

 of a region with a moist and equable climate, whose con- 

 ditions we can imitate in some degree by bell-glass culture. 

 The plant mentioned and figured in a previous paperf has 

 been kept continuously under a bell-glass since the date 

 mentioned — February, 1899 — and is now — November, 1900 — 

 178 cm. tall, and its thickest branch 4-75 mm. in diameter. 

 The central portion of its three main branches are almost 

 naked for a distance of 3*7 cm., but the lower third of the 

 whole plant is one mass of very healthy green leafy shoots, 

 the largest of which are 3 - 5 cm. in length, and the whole of 

 whose leaves are of the deeply toothed almost pinnatifid 



* I.e., p. 280. 



f I.e., p. 396 and pi. xxix. For photograph of adult shoot see pi. xxviii. 



