458 



superior petals showing that they correspond with the two lateral pe- 

 tals of the ordinary flower ; and that the two spurred petals were de- 

 veloped in the place of the ordinary single anterior petal. He regards 

 the enlarged anterior stamen as consisting of two, each making an 

 unsuccessful effort to develope an appendage ; and the enlarged an- 

 terior sepal also as made up of the union of the two ordinary lower 

 sepals. 



In the former case the floral envelopes were regulated by the num- 

 ber 4 : Prof. Forbes proceeds to describe a still more remarkable case 

 of Peloria, in which they were regulated by the number 3. The three 

 sepals are of normal and equal dimensions and the three petals all 

 spurred, and nearly but not quite equal, the odd one, which is inferior, 

 having a larger spur than either of the other two. There is no tuft 

 of hairs on any of the petals, but they are all lineated. The stamina 

 are five, all furnished with appendages, the two lowermost of which, 

 fully developed, penetrate the spur of the anterior petal, while the 

 spur of the left upper petal receives the fully-developed appendage of 

 one of the stamina, and that of the right also one fully-developed ap- 

 pendage, the appendage of the fifth stamen (small and only partially 

 developed) bending back after proceeding only a little way. A little 

 below the flower, between it and the true bracteae, which present their 

 usual appearance, there is a whorl of five bract-like sepals, between 

 two of which, and directly beneath the largest-spurred petal of the 

 monstrous flower, is a single petal partially developed and exhibiting 

 an abortive spur. " In this case," the author proceeds, " we have the 

 outer whorl of floral envelopes developed, and an effort made towards 

 the development of the second in the aborted basal petal ; then the 

 axis elongating and terminating in a flower in which two of the sepals 

 are aborted and four of the petals, viz., the two lateral and two supe- 

 rior ones, for the absence of tufts of hairs prevents our regarding two 

 of the three as the former, and the presence of lineated bases shows 

 that they are not the latter. They are repetitions of the basal petal, 

 which in this instance is multiplied by three> as in the cases before 

 described it was multiplied by two." In this plant no traces of the 

 fungus were observed. 



Prof. Forbes cites the instances of Peloria among Violets recorded 

 by Leers and DeCandolle, and refers to the view adopted by the lat- 

 ter and by M. Moquin-Tandon, viz., that the Peloria is caused by the 

 tendency of all the petals to assume a spurred condition in conse- 

 quence of a general effort as it were on the part of an irregular flower 

 to become regular. He states that DeCandolle's figures are not suf- 



