THE PLANT WORLD. 



53 



ABNORMAL LEAVES AND FLOWERS. 

 By Sadie F. Price. 



1HAVE, this season, observed several instances of a deviation from 

 tlie ordinary characteristics of certain species of plants, and have 

 thoLio^ht it might be of sufficient interest to record them. 



In several clover leaves the basal maro-ins of the leaflets were 

 united, forming a funnel-like cavity. Several of the compound leaves 

 of JBignonia ca/preolata. L., bore leaflets whose midrib had l)een 

 prolonged into a fully developed tendril. This i)lant sent up so many 

 sprouts in the yard where it had been transplanted, that an effort was 

 made to keep it under control. But ' 'it would not down". Could these 

 extra tendrils have been an aid to it in "the struggle for existence?" 



I have several leaves of the English ivy showing gradations from 

 a palmate-veined leaf to a digitate leaf. In one there are only two 

 lobes to the leaf, in others four; the central lobe is truncate as in the 

 Tulip tree. Still another has a large two-lobe, and a small ovate leaf- 

 let with still another small leaflet produced at the edge of the leaf. 



A leaf of the cultivated cinnamon vine is three-lobed or palmate; 



the center leaf Ijeing ovate, while the other two are ear-shaped on the 



lower side. 



A flower of the pink zephyr lily, 



Atamosco rosea^ has the bract subtend- 

 ing the perianth unusually developed, 

 and of the same shape, texture and 

 color as the perianth. 



The usually cruciform flower of 

 the Wild Rocket, TJieJyjxxJium jyi^^na- 

 tljidinn, had eight petals throughout 

 the plant. 



A correspondent has sent me sev- 

 eral Buckeye leaves, (Fig. 1) that were 

 gathered at Burnside, Kentucky, near 

 the upper Cumberland, that have pin- 

 nate leaflets. It is a queer phenom- 

 enon, as perhaps a dozen leaves on the 

 tree were thus divided, the rest being 

 normal. These show all gradations. 



In some of the leaves the leaflets are all pinnate, in others only a 



part of the leaflet is thus divided. 



Fro. 1. 



