160 The Botanical Gazette. [June, 



the sepals, so that the position of the sepals can be deter- 

 mined even when they have fallen off, which they do as soon 

 as the flower opens. This typical arrangement of the flowers 

 is illustrated in fig. I. The stamens have been omitted from 

 this diagram because nothing definite could be determined 

 regarding their arrangement. However, the fact that the 

 leaves forming the pistil decussate with the sepals suggested 

 the following interpretation. The stamens are too numerous 

 to be interpreted as a single whorl, even if dedoublement be 

 allowed its play, especially when it is considered that Canbya, 

 showing the smallest number of stamens known, six, possesses 

 at least two whorls of stamens, and that most species demand 

 a greater number. The blood-root must have more than two 

 whorls in order to make the pistil leaves decussate in regular 

 succession with the previous whorl, and with the sepals. 

 Three whorls at least are therefore represented by the stamens, 

 but for the present all question of dedoublement must be left 

 undecided. 



During the examination of a great number of flowers be- 

 longing to the same species it was to be expected that anom- 

 alous forms would be found Most of these were isolated 

 cases, such as a single sepal, evidently formed by the junction 

 of the two ordinary sepals, fig. 2; or the more important case 

 of sepals occupying a position directly beneath the pistil 

 leaves, fig. 4, in which case it is necessary to assume an even 

 instead of an odd number of staminal whorls in order to ex- 

 plain away their abnormal position, or rather the abnormal 

 position of the pistil leaves. Slightly diagonal positions of 

 the sepals are occasionally met with, but the extreme cases, 

 such as that illustrated in fig. 10, are almost always more ap- 

 parent than real, and rest upon the fact that the attachment 

 of the sepals at their base takes up about half of the circum- 

 ference of the peduncle at this point. As this base, however, 

 represents the linear area from which the development of the 

 sepals proceeded, a slight extension of this area to the right 

 or the left often serves to place the indefinite median line of 



A 1 * a 



the sepals in a position more or less oblique to the remaining 

 members of the flower. These exceptional conditions are 

 mentioned only for the sake of completeness. 



A far more interesting group of variations from the typical 

 arrangement first described is that shown by the petals, and 

 when the great frequency of such variations from the type is 



