36 



•wras prolonged into a green stalk about one inch in length, ■which 

 was furnished with two leaves of the normal form. About two- 

 thirds up there was a flower bud, above which the stem was 

 again continued for about a quarter of an inch, and surmounted 

 by a whorl of four leaves with an axillary flower bud as before. 



The above were the features presented by the specimen sent 

 me, and they would seem to come under Dr. Master's case of 

 prolification of the flower mentioned in page 115 of his 

 Teratology. Where the centre of the flower is occupied by a 

 bud or branch, the growing point, or termination of the axis, 

 which ordinarily ceases to grow after the formation of the carpels, 

 has here taken on new growth. The mixed colours of the corolla, 

 in the present instance partly green and partly blue, were of 

 interest as tending to show the true nature of the floral leaves, 

 viz., that they are merely the ordinary leaves of the plant 

 converted into petaloid leaves, I do not find the genus 

 Penstemon among those in which such reversion has been 

 recorded, it has been observed, however, in other genera belonging 

 to the order Scrophulariacese, as Verbascum, Similar transfor- 

 mations are not uncommon in other orders. 



Dr, Masters gives a remarkable instance in a flower of a cherry 

 in which there was "a gradual change from the floral to the foliar 

 condition ; there were five distinct lanceolate sepals, the arrange- 

 ment of whose veins betokened that they were leaf-sheaths 

 rather than perfect leaves, ten petals partly foliaceous and sheath- 

 like as to their venation, one of them funnel-shaped. The 

 stamens were ten in number, their connectives prolonged into 

 foliaceous appendages so that the filament represented the stalk 

 of the leaf The pistil was entirely absent, and its place was 

 supplied by a branch with numerous perfectly formed stipulate 

 leaves. The genus Plantago presents numerous instances of this 

 kind of transformation, its monstrosities are not uncommon in our 

 gardens^ and that of P. major is frequent in our fields, it is also 

 common in cultivated roses. 



