Volume 9 Number 5 



The Plant World 



91 f^a%npmt of popular ^otanp 

 MAY, 1906 



SOME MONSTROSITIES IN TRILLIUM.^= 



By F. ;M. Andrews, 



Assistant Professor of Botany. Indiana State Unii'crsity, 

 Blooniington. Indiana. 



The genus Trillimii occasionally shows interesting" variations 

 not only in the form, but also in the number of foliar and floral 

 parts. These changes are especially conspicuous in some speci- 

 mens of Trillium found near Bloomington. Of these, some varia- 

 tions worthy of note have been observed. Two plants were found 

 growing' within a meter of one another, one of these being Trilliiiiii 

 sessile and the other Trilliuui rcciiri'iifuiii. In both of these speci- 

 mens no trace of the usual stamens or pistil was present, all the 

 floral organs being completely transformed into floral leaves which 

 in Trillinui rcciirz'afuiii were considerably larger (with the excep- 

 tion of the central ones ) than the same parts in normal flowers 

 growing near them. In Trilliimi rccurvatum the number of these 

 leaves in the flowers without reproductive organs was twenty- 

 three, and in Trilliiiui sessile fourteen. Fig. 17, A, shows such 

 a flower with twenty floral leaves. No gradation from petals to 

 stamens was observed in these specimens, as is sometimes seen in 

 some water lilies. The number of sepals, floral leaves, venation 

 and other features were normal in all of the plants named above. 



A third interesting variation was a specimen of the species 

 Trillium sessile (Fig. 17, B) in which the various parts were 



* See also Variations in Trillium by Lester B. Gary, Plant World, vol. 8, 

 no. 10, Oct. 190S, p. 257. 



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