STRUCTUKE OF COMPOSITES. 35 



Warmiiig, are of oxDiuion that at present Composites have no real 

 calyx or only traces of it, and that the pappus consists of mere 

 apiDentlages or outgrowths not referable to distmct sepals. Buchenau 

 suggests that prehistoric Composites had a five-leaved calyx, which 

 has become effaced, as time has rolled on, h-om the pressure 

 exerted by the densely packed flowers. Did, then, these ancestral 

 Composites j)ossess looser inflorescences in those days ? Who shall 

 tell ? Treub* considers the pappus to consist of five sepals modified, 

 because he has seen, as I have also done. Composites with five green 

 sepals in place of a pappus ; but the occasional development of an 

 organ which is usually supx^ressed does not prove that the x)arts that 

 are generally present, like the papx)us, are necessarily modified repre- 

 sentatives of abortive organs. They may or they may not be. Lund, 

 following Hofmeister, thinks each pappus-hair represents a sepal, 

 the sepals being therefore multiplied as the carpels of Ranimculacea 

 aref ; but Warmmg, in the paper pre\^ously cited, disposes of that 

 view by showing, with truth, that the hau's or scales of the jDappus do 

 not correspond in position mtli the se^Dals, but occui- in an indefinite 

 manner, and very late in order of development ; the true calyx of 

 Composites is the slight rim which forms beneath the base of the 

 corolla. In all of these points I am disposed to concm- with the 

 Danish naturalist, who further refers these organs to " trichomes " 

 rather than to phyllomes, on anatomical grounds upon the vahdity 

 of which I am in no x^osition to offer an opinion. 



Those who are disposed to speculate on the ancestral condition 

 and possible hneage of Composites, as mdicated by the com-se of 

 development, may faMy deduce h'om the specimen above de- 

 scribed, as well as fi-om the history of development in general, that 

 Composites are descended fi'om some plants having a tubular calyx 

 and corolla, five hypogynous free stamens, and a dimerous superior 

 pistil, — that in fact at one time they formed part of a great group 

 which Linnaeus would have mcluded under his Pentandria Digynia. 



But Httle space is left for allusion to the historical interest 

 attaching to this specimen. It may briefly be mentioned that 

 Linnaeus, in his ' Prolepsis Plantarum,' a very remarkable but 

 somewhat fantastic essay, considers the flower as m some sense an 

 "anticipation" of a shoot of several years' growth. Those parts 

 which, in a shoot, would be developed in succession year after 

 year, are, he says, in the case of the flower, developed in one year. 

 FoUowmg out this idea, Linnaeus conceived the idea that the pistil 

 represented the sixth year's growth thus produced in advance. 

 For brevity sake I quote the passage relating to monstrosities of 

 Carduus heterophijllus and C. tataricus, which clearly were very 

 similar to those above described ni Helenium, with the addition 

 of leafy sepals. Unfortunately I have not been able to trace any 

 specimens of these iDlants in the herbarium of Linn^us. 



* ' Treub, Notice sur I'Aigrette des Composees Archives Neerlandaises,' t. viii. 



+ Lund Btegeret bos Kuivljlomsterue, analysis in ' Bull. Soc. Bot. Fr.' 

 t. XX. p. 33, Kev. Bibl., and vol. xxi. 1874, Rev. Bibl. p. 37 ; Trimen's ' Journal 

 of Botany,' lb73, p. 184=: Hofmeister, ' Handb. Physiol. Bot.' 18G8, t. i. 4.68. 

 For Phyllody in the Calyx and Ovary of Composites see references in ' Vegetable 

 Teratology,' pp. 247 and 260. 



