TRANSFORMED PEARS. 



of leafy scales, adhere around the centre of the flower, which has lengthened some- 

 what like a branch, while the remainder of the stamens and the carpels are con- 

 cealed within the summit, in the form of withered rudiments. The constitutional 

 tendency to fleshiness, which is the characteristic of the pear, is not lost in this 

 or cither of the two other cases, but is preserved throughout, only diminishing 

 towards the eye. 



In Fig. 2, the phenomena takes a somewhat different direction, the leafy ten- 

 dency being greater in some of the sepals, but the tendency to acquire succulence 



having been preserved in a far 

 greater degree ; as if the disturb- 

 ing cause, whatever it may have 

 been, which originally prevented 

 the young parts from becoming 

 petals, &c., and which forced the 

 centre to lengthen like a branch, 

 was effectually withdrawn and over- 

 come by the tendency to become 

 succulent, which the parts had 

 already acquired when the disturb- 

 ing cause began to act. 



In Fig. 3, the change advances 

 further, and in another direction. 

 That dislocation of the rings of 

 parts belonging to the flower, 

 which was so visible in the two 

 last cases, is here carried still 

 further ; and, in addition, two of 

 the young parts near the middle 

 of the whole structure, have each 

 formed in their axil one bud, 

 which has become a deformed 

 flower, and produced a deformed 

 pear. No organ of the plant, except leaves and their modifications, has the power 

 of producing a flower from its axil. 



