SHORT NOTES 347 



by him on Mendip. Mr. White dwells on the great rarity of this 

 plant both in the wild state and in gardens. It may therefore be 

 interesting to record that it still occurs in some plenty just 

 outside Middlesex, at Northaw, Herts, as recorded by Pryor, pre- 

 sumably before 1880, in his Flora of Hertfordshire. In ordinary 

 seasons, however, it often fails to flower in this locality owing to 

 the lateness with which it comes to maturity. I have more than 

 once visited the pond where it grows, late in September, and found 

 only buds in a very immature condition, though some of the stems 

 were four feet high. This year it probably flowered, or would 

 have flowered, freely, but unfortunately by September 14, the date 

 of my visit, the herbage round the pond had been cut down, and 

 I could only find one flowering stem. In my garden it first 

 flowered last year in a dry sunny situation, and this year it has 

 flowered freely. All the flowers I have seen are of the form with 

 short imperfect stamens, so it would probably fail to produce seed 

 unless hybridized. The inflorescence is capitate, but sometimes 

 a verticillaster, sometimes a pair of stalked heads, may occur below 

 the terminal rounded head. The plant is practically glabrous, 

 and the calyx is thickly studded with odoriferous glands. The 

 bergamot fragrance is very marked. In Pryor's Flora (1887) one 

 other Herts locality is given, between Eoydon and Stanstead 

 Abbots Church, but this is probably an error, for in the Flora Hert- 

 fordiensis (1849) this locality is given under M. aqiiatica, var. 

 glabrata, no mention being made of var. citrata. A few years 

 ago I looked for the latter in this locality, and could only find a 

 glabrous form of M. aquatica having the usual rank odour of that 

 species. — Henry Peirson. 



Abnormal Development in Maize. — A plant of Maize grow- 

 ing in my garden this summer, in addition to the usual terminal 

 panicle of male flowers, and one or two female spikes on short 

 lateral branches, has produced close to the ground a lateral stem 

 nine inches long, ending in a small spike three and a half inches 

 long with the grains arranged in twelve rows as usual. In 

 addition to this, however, there are two small spikes, one very 

 imperfect, springing from the base of the main spike, and one 

 arising three quarters of an inch higher. The latter is two and a 

 half inches long, the upper half inch being quite undeveloped. 

 This spike, though defective in symmetry, appears to represent a 

 two-sided spike, comparable to that of wheat or barley, the rachis 

 having two longitudinal strips quite bare of grains, the inner one 

 much the broader, and applied to the surface of the main spike. 

 These bare portions seem to represent the edges of the flattened 

 rachis in the cereals just mentioned. The grains are arranged 

 alternately in pairs, a pair from each joint of the rachis, the whole 

 arrangement corresponding to that of the spikelets of Elijmus. 

 As most readers are doul)tloss aware, a theory has recently been 

 brought forward that Maize originated as a fasciated condition of 

 Euchloena, and it will be found that if three spikes such as tlie 

 one I have described were completely and symmetrically fused 

 together without loss of any of tlicir florets, the result would be 



