114 Proceedings of Indiana Academy of Science 
are on record, which indicates that pelorism as a mutation is frequent 
(6.9012) ice = Reig. he 
Prior to October, 1921, the author knew:nothing of peloria, although 
he had seen and collected various kinds of monstrous flowers. At the 
time above noted the author’s attention was directed by Dean Stanley 
Coulter to a peculiar modification of the flowers of Linaria found grow- 
ing along a street in the city of Lafayette. These peculiar plants were 
discovered by Miss Hester Meigs, a student of Jefferson high school. 
The writer visited the place twice and collected both normal and ab- 
normal plants. Whole plants of each kind were pressed and dried and 
flowering portions of each kind were preserved in formaldehyde. Seeds 
of the normal plants were very plentiful, but only a few seeds were 
obtained from the peloric plants. Transplants were also collected and 
these are now sending up new shoots. After having disposed of the 
material in satisfactory manner for safe-keeping, the subject was in- 
vestigated. 
The normal plants were identified as Linaria Linaria (L) Karst. 
of Britton and Brown (or Linaria vulgaris Hill of Gray) and here 
below the genus description it is stated that the corolla, especially the 
terminal one of the raceme, occasionally has five spurs and is regularly 
five-lobed, and is then said to be in the peloria state (7). In Gray’s 
Manual it is noted that in abnormal specimens the corolla is sometimes 
regularly five-spurred (8). Several large dictionaries give short defini- 
tions for the term peloria, but most of the ordinary botany books and 
the Encyclopaedia Britannica do not contain the term and the condi- 
tion is alluded to in only two (9, 10) of the general texts examined, 
one of which states that regular flowers become diversely irregular 
and irregular kinds perfectly regular (9). This book advises the ex- 
amination of Masters’ Vegetable Teratology. (An old English book, 
London, 1868, 534 interesting pages.) 
The normal flowers of Linaria have an irregular corolla with one 
spur at the base. The corolla is two-lipped, the upper lip erect and 
two-lobed, covering the lower in the bud. The lower lip is three-lobed 
and spreading (Fig. 3). There are four stamens which are didynamous 
(in two pairs of unequal length) (Fig. 6). The seeds are numerous 
in numerous capsules (Figs. 1, 8). 
From an examination of the plants with abnormal, that is, with 
peloric flowers, it was found that differences existed in different peloric 
flowers. The corolla in all flowers examined was regularly five-spurred, 
the spurs alternating with the calyx lobes. The corolla tube tapered 
gradually to the top, where it was rolled over and divided into five 
small lobes which were quite regular in most cases (Fig. 2). In some 
instances, however, the lobes were unequal, there being a tendency to 
develop into two lips, the upper lip being pronounced and of two lobes, 
the lower lip consisting of the usual small middle lobe and two much 
smaller lateral lobes (Fig. 5). In all cases these more or less slight 
variations of lobes were found on plants with many flowers, all being 
pelorized, having five spurs. 
All of the peloric flowers examined had five stamens instead of the 
normal didynamous stamens (Fig. 7). In some of the flowers there 
