CHANGE OP DIRECTION. 209 



like torus are bent downwards towards the stunted 

 carpels instead of being, as they usually are, straight. 

 Amongst orchids, where the pedicel of the flower or 

 the ovary is normally twisted, so that the labellum occu- 

 pies the anterior or inferior part of the flower, it fre- 

 quently happens, in cases of peloria and other changes, 

 that the primitive position is retained, the twist does 

 not take place, and so ^vith other resupinate flowers. 

 In Azaleas a curious deflexion of the parts of the 

 flower may occasionally be met with. Fig. 112 shows 

 an instance of this in which the corolla, the stamens 

 and the style were abruptly bent downwards : as 



Fig. 112. Flower of Azalea, showing the corolla reflected. 



young flowers of this singular variety have not been ex- 

 amined it is difficult to form an opinion as to the cause 

 of this variation. In one plant the change occurred in 

 connection with the suppression of all the flowers but 

 one in the cluster, or rather the place of the flowers 

 was occupied by an equal number of leafy shoots. 



Moquin^ mentions a flower of Rosa alpina in which 

 two of the petals were erect, while the remaining ones 

 were much larger and expanded horizontally. The 

 same author quotes from M. Desmoulins the case of a 

 species of Orobanche, in which a disjunction of the 

 petals constituting the upper lip took place, thus hbe- 



' Loc. cit., p. 315. 



11- 



