322 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



iug interest to the student of floral structures, is perhaps more 

 monotonous than amusing from the point of view of this paper, 

 which deals more particularly with the unexplainable and eccen- 

 tric than with strange shapes that are the natural result of an 

 underlying law. Thus the garden petunia " doubles " easily, 

 and in so doing loses its stamens, or some of them, and much 

 of its former beauty. In a study of this process some three 



years ago, in which hun- 

 dreds of specimens were ex- 

 amined, a peculiarity of 

 still greater interest than 

 the simple changing of 

 stamens into petals was 

 brought to light. The un- 

 usual size of the petals in 

 some of the doubled flowers 

 led to a dissection of them, 

 when it was found that the 

 contents consisted of sta- 

 mens partly changed into 

 petals and often highly col- 

 ored, while in the center of 

 all was a small pistil about 

 one third the normal size. 

 Not infrequently the ova- 

 rian stamens had their an- 

 thers tipped with a small 

 stigrnatic surface, thus in- 

 dicating the close associa- 

 tion of the sexual elements 

 in the floral structures. Fig. 

 3 shows a normal pistil, the one at Fig. 4 is from a doubled blos- 

 som, and Fig. 5 shows the secondary pistil at the center. 



Last year, while examining some peppers for a fungous dis- 

 ease, a peculiar formation was met with that comes in the same 

 category with the petunia above mentioned. In making a longi- 

 tudinal section of the fruit, the seed-bearing column was found 

 crowned by a small pepper which in itself was a fruit in minia- 

 ture. This freak is shown in Fig. 6. 



It is an easy step from flower to fruit, for the latter is a part 

 of and a natural result of the former. The prolification seen in 

 the rose and in many other flowers has its counterpart in fruits 

 of various kinds. Thus, strawberries have been known to bear a 

 branch at the free end, and pears sometimes exhibit the same 

 freak. Fig. 7 shows such a fruit with a branch and a number of 

 leaves extending beyond the blossom end. 



Fig. 8. 



