IBBEGULAR PELOBIA. 229 



prodigy, was applied to it.^ After a time other irregular 

 flowers were found in like condition, and so the term 

 peloria became applied to all cases wherein, on a plant 

 habitually producing irregular flowers, regular ones 

 were formed. The fact that this regularity might arise 

 from two totally different causes was overlooked, or at 

 least not fully recognised, even by Moquin-Tandon 

 himself. Where a flower retains throughout Hfe the 

 same relative size in its parts that it had when those 

 parts first originated the result is, of course, a regular 

 flower, as happens in violets and other plants. This 

 kind of peloria may for distinction sake be called 

 regular or congenital peloria (see chapter on that 

 subject) ; but where a flower becomes regular by the 

 increase in number of its irregular portions, as in the 

 Linaria already alluded to, where not only one petal 

 is spurred, but all five of them are furnished with such 

 appendages, and which are the result of an irregular 

 development of those organs, the peloria is evidently 

 not congenital, but occurs at a more or less advanced 

 stage of development. To this latter form of peloria 

 it is proposed to give the distinctive epithet of 

 irregular. 



Peloria is either complete or incomplete ; it is com- 

 plete when the flower appears perfectly symmetrical, it 

 is incomplete when only a portion of the flower is thus 

 rendered regular. It is very common, for instance, to 

 find violets or Linarias with two or three spurs, and 

 these intermediate stages are very interesting, as they 



' ' Amoen. Acad.,' i, p. 55, t. iii (1744) : The following note refers to 

 Linne's notion that these forms were due to hybridization. It is 

 extracted fix>m Gmelin's edition of the ' Systema Naturae,' 1791, p. 931. 

 " Linarice proleS bybrida, ejusdemque qualitatis et constans, ramcibus 

 infinite sese multiplicans charactere fructificationis diversissima, corolla 

 regulari, quinque-comiculata, pentandra, ut genus proprium absolute 

 conatitueret et distinctissimum, nisi fructus frequentissime abortiret. 

 Natui-a) prodigium. Ita quidem a Linne. Verisimilior autem videtur 

 ea opinio, quae peloriam pro peculiari defeneration e monstrosa floris 

 habet, in quam inclinare hoc genus (Linana) prse aliis, similis a forma 

 deflexio in aliis speciebus, e. g. gpurio Elatine, cyvibalaria, observntii, 

 . . . . Merk.. ' Goett. gel. Anz.,' 1774, n. 121. Linck, 'Annal. 

 Naturg.,' i. p. 32." 



