619 



candlelight, I discovered that all the expanded flowers in the spike 

 (and they were many) bore spurs as in several genera belonging to 

 the natural order we are now considering. There was, however, this 

 difference between them, that whereas the calcarate plants of the or- 

 der are contented, with Butler's renowned knight, to wear but one 

 spur, and that too, like him, on the heel,* our eccentric foxglove pre- 

 ferred following the fashion of modern cavaliers in sporting a pair, 

 although in a position where spurs were never worn till now. Each 

 corolla carried one of these appendages on either side, about the mid- 

 dle of its length, and somewhat below the medial line of its depth or 

 vertical section — in other words, towards, but not actually on its un- 

 der surface, the situation of these processes precisely corresponding 

 in all the flowers, but in the higher unopened buds no trace of a spur 

 was visible, this organ appearing to be developed during their expan- 

 sion, as it might be traced faintly in some of the lower, larger and 

 more forward buds, and be seen increasing in size and distinctness as 

 the flowers successively acquired magnitude in proportion to their 

 distance from the termination of the spike. These spurs did not ex- 

 ceed a quarter of an inch in length, were straight, hollow, rather ob- 

 tuse than acute, and pointed backwards, closely resembling in size 

 and structure those of Linaria repens. On what morphological prin- 

 ciples can the production of these spurs in so anomalous a part of the 

 corolla be explained ? Dr. Lindley notices the tendency in the 

 flowers of Scrophulariaceae to form pouches or spurs,t but in all cases, 

 so far as I am aware, these hollows are definite in their situation, the 

 corolla being either gibbous and calcarate at base beneath the tube 

 or annular margin of insertion on the perigynous disk, or produced at 

 its anterior extremity into foveate or vaulted concavities, forming the 

 ringent or personate corolla. If this curious example of spurred co- 

 rollas produced on a plant which does not naturally bear such, is to 

 be regarded as an evidence of the nixns alluded to by Lindley, is it 

 not remarkable that the tendency should betray itself in a manner so 

 abnormal as in the case before us ? The Foxglove is often called, 

 here and in other parts of the south, Poppy (in Devonshire, Flop 

 Poppy), perhaps from the smell of the flowers, which is like that of 



* " For Hudibras wore but one spur, 

 As wisely knowing, could he stir 

 To active trot one side of 's horse, 

 The other would not hang — of course." 



Hudibras, Canto I. {amended edition). 

 | 'The Vegetable Kingdom,' p. 683. 



