324 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



branched, thus giving rise to the " lingers/' while the lower por- 

 tion of the cob makes a fair-shaped " wrist." The engraving is 

 made from a photograph recently sent from Missouri. 



It would be impossible to mention the instances even of ab- 

 normal forms in seeds, or to go further and show how there may- 

 be monstrous forms 

 that can only be seen 

 through the com- 

 pound microscope. 



The molds, mil- 

 dews, rusts, smuts, 

 and various blights 

 that feed upon high- 

 er plants have their 

 freaks that are some- 

 times puzzling to 

 those who study these 

 minute structures. 



A large museum 

 might be filled with 

 the eccentricities of 

 the vegetable world. 

 < Some of them would 

 only teach the lesson 

 of a lack of equi- 

 librium among the 

 laws which deter- 

 mine definite lines 

 ^t^^^^t °f growth. Others 



: ^-^*i?&^$2W would serve to open 



•s , . *? .; : 5 -, '££ the door to some hid - 



~ ■'- • - • den fact of vegetable 



morphology. Thus, 

 Fig. 11.— Hand-cob. the interchange of 



stamens and pistils 

 in some abnormal blossom teaches the lesson of the common origin 

 of the two essential organs, while the gradation of either or both 

 to floral envelopes indicates that pistils are only petals of a special 

 form for a special purpose. In short, the malformations as we 

 speak of them are only forms in less than their usual disguise. 

 The leaf is the unit of structure in the flower, and the flower is a 

 metamorphosed branch, which may terminate in a seed-vessel, as 

 the pear, or in rare instances in a leafy branch beyond the fruit, 

 thereby corroborating the belief that the fruit is a part of a stem. 

 Some one has said that when under the influence of an intoxi- 

 cant the victim throws off his disguise and lets his inner self 





