317 
SOME ABNORMAL FORMS OP OP 1 1 MS. 
By J. Traherne Moggridge, Esq. 
(Plate LXXII. A.) 
In the number of this Journal for June, 1866, I described two re- 
markable flowers of Oplirys, in one of which a second anther was pro- 
duced within the lobes of the normal one, and another in which a 
third rostellum -was developed on the edge of the stigmatic cavity at 
the point where the glandular processes in Orchis seem to indicate the 
presence of rudimentary anthers. 
The former of these developments may be compared with Professor 
Henslow's drawing and description of a flower of Habenaria cJdorantha 
in the Linnean Society's Journal (ii. 104), where an intermediate 
anther is produced between the widely-separated lobes of the normal 
anther. 
This is a very rare form ; but the latter, in which an extra rostellum 
is formed on one side or the other of the anther, may frequently be 
observed in Ophrys, the genus with which I am best acquainted. 
The subjects of the present notice are examples of different stages 
of abnormal development, and show how the petal when in connection 
with that part of the stigmatic cavity which sometimes produces a ros- 
tellum, is gradually modified into an anther. In all cases which I 
have observed, the anther when undergoing this change was sutured to 
the back of the stigmatic cavity, and never free. 
And here I would observe that there are three abnormal conditions 
in which flowers mav be found, each of which must be considered be- 
fore one can attempt to draw specific conclusions from a "monstrous" 
specimen. The first question then will be whether the flower is really 
but one, or whether it may be the result of the coalition of two. This 
condition, in which two individuals are fused, as it were, into one, is 
»ot uncommon ; and it frequently happens that the evidence of the 
existence of a second flower is so completely done away with that the 
'act becomes extremely difficult to realize. 
Besides the fusion of individuals, we must certainly take into ac- 
count the fusion of parts of flowers, as in the case above mentioned ; 
™<], thirdly, we must hold distinct from these examples of free 
VOL. V. [NOVEMBER i, 1867.] Z 
