172 



d) Hexamerous flower, 3 of the sepals small, 2 moderate, 1 big. 

 The number of stigmas remains two in all the cases, so the 

 number of carpels does not seem liable to variation. 



COMPOSITAE. 



HeUanthus annuus L. 



Habitat America. 



Coll. March 1894, 1897. 



1. Synanthody, and this under the following circumstances: 

 the stem terminates in a normal flower-head, but from the 

 axil of each leaf springs a peduncle with two capitula; these 

 capitula are either separately peduncled or sessile and in the 

 latter case they may cohere or even coalesce. The common 

 peduncle is flattened at the top and shows two longitudinal 

 furrows and two medullary cavities more or less separated, at 

 the base the peduncle is almost cylindrical. Evidently one has 

 to do here with fission (in various degrees) of the meristemes 

 of the flower-heads. One of the peduncles bears a third capitulum. 

 Penzig deals with Synanthody IT p. 67. 



2. A number of germinating plants of a length 1 dM. bifurcate. 



3. One of these bifurcating stems showed at the point of 

 division 5 leaves instead of fonr; the figure (93) shows that 

 this abnormal number is caused by the bifurcation of one of 

 the leaves '). On the contrary an other bifurcated plant, less 

 strong than the preceding one, showed only three leaves. 



Rudbeckia radula Pursh. 



Habitat North America. 



Coll. March 1898. 



Several capitula bear on the disk, which for the rest is 

 covered with tubular florets and paleae, a few bracts with 

 ligidate florets. One of the specimens shows all round the centre 

 of the disk a ring of bracts and on the outei- side of each of 

 them a ligulate floret and these placed in such a way that 

 the upper side of each corolla faces that of the opposite ray- 



1) Bifurcating leaves have been observed in H. tuberosus, Penzig II, p. 68. 



