118 NATURE NOTES. 
In the double cherry, where multiplicity of petals has 
been secured at the expense of fruit, you will find a small 
ereen folded leaf in the middle of the blossom. No attempt 
at a carpellary leaf at all—only a tiny cherry leaf speaking 
somewhat sadly of the might-have-been. 
But the leaf is not content to stop here. In some cases, 
where the several flowers of some ancestral type have found 
benefit from forming themselves into a republic, instead of 
each blossom being a separate kingdom and a law unto 
itself, the leaf undergoes another change. 
In the dandelion such a coalition has taken place, and 
a calyx is no longer needed for each tiny floret. The calyx 
has, therefore, to choose between being atrophied as an effete 
organ or adapting itself to the altered conditions of its 
surroundings. It has chosen to do the latter, and has 
become a set of tiny hairs, which persist after the fall of 
the corolla, and, forming a parachute for the ripened seed, 
carries it away on the first favouring puff of wind. 
It is not Nature’s relentless immutability which forces 
our attention, but her miraculous plasticity ; her power of 
moulding certain elementary forms into such differing and 
fantastic shapes ; for, at every turn, she seems a masquerading 
domino, a gay stranger smiling behind a new disguise. 
ELIZABETH M. JOHNSTONE. 
* POLEMONIUM C(ERULEUM” AND “ PILULARIA GLOBULIFERA ” 
AT DRUMSHORELAND. 
Durine the summer of 1898 one of the rambles chosen 
by the Society was to the prettily wooded district near 
Drumshoreland, where I was pleased to find, far from any 
dwelling-house or garden, and with no evidence of being 
a mere “escape,” several specimens of Polemoniwm cwrulewm 
(Jacob’s Ladder), which is a rare plant in the neighbourhood 
of Edinburgh, and, though probably not native in this 
locality, is at least in the position of a prosperous colonist, 
and therefore deserving of recognition. 
