126 ERYTHEA. 



morphological grounds it is undoubted that Scrophularia and its 

 allies have descended from ancestors with regular corollas (perhaps 

 of the Solanaceous type), and more remotely with distinct sepals. But 

 it needs not to be written down here, scarcely, that all the foliaceoua 

 developments which occur in the same flowers with regular corollas 

 and chorisepalous calyces are not in anywise in the nature of 

 reversions. 



By "foliaceous" as applied to the carpels or ovules, I mean not 

 merely tlie becoming green, but that these parts assume the char- 

 acteristic structure of the upper foliage leaves of the species ; they 

 become not only ovate or lanceolate, but invariably more or less 

 serrate and often slightly petioled. Thus a distinction may be 

 drawn between the perianth and the pistil whorl, for the parts of 

 the former may, and do, become herbaceous but not "foliaceous." 



The behavior of the stamen whorl is in many ways the most 

 interesting, in that, while the anthers are always abortive in truly 

 abnormal flowers, in no case either during or subsequent to anthesis 

 do they change their form, at least in appreciable or marked degree. 

 On the other hand, the ovules, although not fertilized and incapable 

 of fertilization (because abortive), frequently grow with rapidity and 

 develop foliaceously, drawing to themselves the nourishment which 

 would normally be received for the maturing of seed. 



The soil in which these plants grow is very fertile and is rich in 

 nitrogenous compounds.* That this superabundance of food may 

 have something to do with the production of abnormal flowers is 

 altogether probable. The writer may observe that he has discov- 

 ered abnormal-flowered individuals of the kind here described, in 

 Mendocino County, and that the soil was evidently of the same 

 character. 



EXPLANATION OF PLATE IV. 



Figure 1. — Normal flower, showing bilabiate corolla (c) with erect 

 upper lip of 2 lobes, middle lobe of lower lip closely 

 reflexed with the deflexed style turned downward 

 over it. 



* The same hillside is the home of a cluster of poison oak (Rhus diversi- 

 loba) bushes bearing many fasciated branches ; here have also been discov- 

 ered several monstrous individuals of Ranunculus Californicus and of 

 Eschscboltzia Californica. 



