6 FURTHER NOTE ON THE STRUCTURE OF COMPOSITES. 



to an ancestral condition, and for it the term " Proximate 

 Ecvcrsion " may perhaps be allowed. The other is a re-delineation, 

 as it were, of developmental lines which are usually invisible. 

 Moreover, it may confidently be expected that w4ien our know- 

 ledge of that difficult subject the pedigree of organisms becomes 

 more definite, and when some safe conclusions have been reached 

 concerning the phylogenetic value of the facts of Teratology, many 

 more instances of this second form of Eeversiou will be brought to 

 hght. 



[Appendix. — Since writing the above I have had the advan- 

 tage of oral communication with Dr. Eeichenbach, who informs 

 me that he has in his collection two monstrous states of 

 Cijpripedinw Sedeni, the one above-noticed, and another in which 

 the sides of the ' shield ' are polleniferous. As he has many othei 

 interesting Cijpripedium monsters, we may hope soon to have a 

 memoir on the Teratology of the genus at his hands. — Oct. 1878.] 



Explanation of Tab. 200, a. — 1. Monandrous Uower of Cypripedium Sedeni, 

 Rchb. f. (natural size). 2. Column of normal flower about natural size. 

 3. Column of monster on scale of last. 4. Enlarged view of monstrous column. 

 5. Stigniatic lobes of normal flower slightly enlarged. 6. Stigmatic lobes 

 of monster on scale of last. 7. Diagram of flower. 



FURTHER NOTE ON THE STRUCTURE OF COMPOSITES. 



By Maxwell T. Masters, M.D., F.R.S. 



(Tab. 200, b.) 



In the number of this Journal for February last I took occasion 

 to allude to certain malformations of interest as bearing upon the 

 structure of Composites. The flowers of Helenium. autwnnale, to 

 which reference was there made, had neither ovary nor calyx, the 

 corolla was virescent, the five stamens were free and sprang from 

 a i)rolonged thalamus, which l)ore at its summit two open leaves 

 representing carpels but without trace of ovules. • It is not neces- 

 sary to refer in greater detail to tliese flowers ; suffice it to say that 

 from a consideration of the structure, normal and abnormal, of 

 Composite flowers, as well as of the course of development, I 

 arrived at the conclusion that the balance of evidence lay with 

 those who consider the pappus not as a true calyx, but as a series 

 of outgrowths or trichomes rather than as definite phyllomes. 



I have now to mention some malformations in Leontodon [Apargia) 

 autunnialr which api)ear to me to be of considerable interest, and 

 for which I am indebted to the kindness of* Mr. M. P. Edgeworth. 

 Under ordinary circumstances the flower-heads of this plant are 

 borne on long slender stalks, destitute, or nearly so, of scales. 

 The involucre consists of numerous linear-lanceolate bracts in 

 many rows, suiTounding a flat receptacle from which the ligulate 

 florets proceed. Each floret emerges, as it were, from a little socket 

 in the receptacle, the edge of the socket bearing four or five small 



