141 



MISCELLANEOUS. 



Cases of Monstrosities becoming the starting-point of New Races in 

 Plants. By C. Naudin. 



The discussion lately raised by MM. C. Dareste and A. Sanson 

 upon the question whether monstrosities, in the animal kingdom, 

 can become the origin of peculiar races, recalls to my memory some 

 teratological facts which appear to me to show that this is the case 

 in plants. Perhajis, however, in the first place, we ought to come 

 to an understanding as to the sense to be attached to the word mon- 

 strosity ; and to avoid all confusion I shall say that I employ it in 

 the sense which is habitually given to it in botany, that of a notable 

 deviation from typical or reputed typical forms. There is, in fact, 

 a distinction to be made between cases of monstrosity incompatible 

 with the faculty of reproduction by generation in the individuals 

 affected by it, and those in which the alteration of form is not such 

 as necessarily to imply the loss of this faculty. It is to the latter 

 only that I wish to refer here, as they alone are in question. 



Well attested facts place it beyond a doubt, in my opinion, that 

 considerable anomalies which, by general consent, are classed among 

 the teratological facts of the vegetable kingdom are faithfully 

 transmitted from generation to generation, and become the salient 

 characters of new races. Horticulture would furnish a great number 

 of these if the trouble had been taken to collect them and subject 

 them to the check of experiment ; but I can cite only a few, because 

 they alone, as far as I know, have been examined scientifically ; and, 

 moreover, they suffice to establish the principle of the transmission 

 of anomalies by sexual reproduction through an indefinite series of 

 generations. 



The first fact of this kind will be borrowed from Professor 

 Gtippert of Breslau. This was a poppy {Papaver officinale) which 

 presented the curious anomaly of the transformation of a part of its 

 stamens into carpels, from which resulted as it were a crown of 

 secondary capsules round the normal central capsule, the develop- 

 ment of which was nevertheless complete. One thing to be noted is 

 that many of these small additional capsules, as well as the normal 

 capsule, contained perfect seeds capable of reproducing the 

 plant. In 1849, M. Gijppert, having learnt that a whole field of 

 these monstrous poppies existed a few miles from Breslau, sowed in 

 the following year a considerable quantity of seeds taken designedly 

 from the normal capsules ; and nearly all the plants which sprang 

 from this sewing reproduced the monstrosity of the previous genera- 

 tion, although not all in the same degree. I do not dwell upon this 

 first fact, because its observation was not, so far as I know, carried 

 any further, and it may be thought that the number of generations 

 is not sufficient to justify our concluding from it the stability of the 

 anomaly indicated. 



The same doubt does not exist with regard to the following facts. 

 Cultivators of ferns know that these plants are very subject to vary, 

 and that some of them, even in the wild state, present true mon- 



