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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



to the unusual development of the stem at its upper end, together 

 with the high color and the fantastic shapes assumed. This is 

 one of the few exceptions to the rule that a fasciation of the stem 

 is not constant. 



Last summer, while looking through the nursery rows of a 

 propagator of hardy perennials, my attention was attracted to the 

 stems of the large-flowered bell-flower (Campanula grandifiora), 

 Instead of the cylindrical stem ami the loose spray of flowers, these 

 two had developed as shown in the asparagus, and from the 

 broad, flat stalk the flowers were closely arranged. At the en- 

 larged end there were several buds and blossoms more or less 

 blended. In one instance three separate flowers were so closely 

 grown together as to appear as a single monstrous blossom. 



Passing now to leaves, the reader will perhaps first of all 

 think of the so-called " four-leaved " clover, in which, instead of 

 the ordinary three leaflets, there is an additional one, or possibly 



two or more, the abnor- 

 ;] mity sometimes running 

 .'/ - as high as seven leaflets. 



) •'// Some years ago, while in 



Iowa, the writer found a 

 clover plant with four- 

 teen leaves having four 

 :> leaflets and seventeen 



with five leaflets, and 

 these outnumbered the 

 ordinary ones. A "six- 

 leaved " leaf found upon 

 another plant had a lobe 

 growing from one side of 

 one leaflet resembling a 

 mouse's ear. There are 

 clover leaves in which 

 the fourth leaflet is 

 shaped like a funnel. 

 The same shape is rarely 

 seen in geranium leaves, 

 and cabbage and lettuce leaves sometimes show strange out- 

 growths from the middle of the under side. Twin leaves at the 

 most unexpected places are, to say the least, surprising. One such 

 in my possession is of the lilac, which ordinarily has foliage of a 

 well-defined form. 



It is when we come to the flower that the greatest absurdities 

 are to be found. Plants may have their stem fasciated and their 

 leaves with strange lobes and incisions, but in the blossom they 

 sometimes go quite "crazy." Gardeners occasionally send or 



PaOLIFEKOU! 



