STUD? XI. I47 



firft, that his pupil intended to put his knowledge 

 to the teft, by adapting a ftrange flower to the 

 fie m of that plant; but he fatisfied himfelf that it 

 was a real linarium, the flower of which Nature 

 had totally changed. It had been found among 

 other linaria, in an ifland, feven miles diftant from 

 Upfal, near the fhore of the fea, on a fandy and 

 gravelly bottom. He himfelf put it to the proof, 

 that it re-perpetuated itfelf in this new ftate by 

 it's feeds. He afterwards found fome of it in other 

 places : and, what is flill more extraordinary, 

 there Were among thefe laft, fome which carried 

 on the fame ftalk flowers tunnel -formed, and 

 flowers gullet- formed. 



He gave to this new vegetable the name of pe» 

 lorum, from the Greek word vfoup, which fignifies 

 prodigy. He afterwards obferved the fame va- 

 riations in other fpecies of plants, and among the 

 reft, in the eriocephalous thiftle, the feeds of which 

 produce, every year, in the garden of Upfal, the 

 fantaftic thiftle of the Pyrennées *. This illuf- 

 trious Botanift accounts for thefe transformations, 

 as being the effèéb of a mongrel generation, dif- 

 turbed by the fecundating farina of fome other 

 flower in the vicinity. It may be fo ; to his opi- 



• Upfalian Diflèrtatjon, for December, 1744; page 59, note 6. 



l 2 nion, 



