PISTILLODY. 305 



especially those which are nearest to the centre of the 

 flower, and in these flowers the filaments are said to be- 

 come the ovaries, while the anthers are curled so as to 

 resemble stigmas. A similar change is not infrequent 

 in Papaver sommferiim. Goeppert, who found numerous 

 instances of the kind in a field near Breslau, says the 

 peculiarity was reproduced by seed for two years in 

 succession.^ Wigand (' Flora,' 1856, p. 717) has noticed 

 among other changes the pistil of Gentiana Amarella 

 bearing two sessile anthers. Polemonium cceruletim is 

 another plant very subject to this change. Brongniart* 

 describes a flower of this species in which the stamens 

 were represented by a circle of carpels united to each 

 other so as to form a sheath around the central 

 ovary. By artificial fertilization M. Brongniart ob- 

 tained fertile seeds from the central normal ovary as 

 well as from the surrounding metamorphosed stamens. 

 Cheiranthtis Cheiri has long been known as one of 

 the plants most subject to this anomaly. De CandoUe 

 even mentions it in his * Prodromus' as a distinct variety, 

 under the name of gynantherus. Brongniart (loc. cit.) 

 thus refers to the Cheiranthus : " Sometimes these 

 six carpellary leaves are perfectly free, and in this case 

 they spread open, presenting two rows of ovules 

 along their inner edges, or these edges may be soldered 

 together, forming a kind of follicle like that of the 

 columbine ; at other times, these staminal pistils are 

 fused into two lateral bundles of three in each bundle, 

 or into a single cyUnder which encircles the true pistil. 

 In a third set of cases these outer carpels are only 

 four in number, two lateral and two antero-posterior, 

 all fused in such a manner as to form around the 

 normal pistil a prism-shaped sheath, with four sides 

 presenting four parietal placentae, corresponding to 

 the lines of junction of the staminal carpels. 



> ' Bot. Zeit.,' 1850, t. viii, pp. 514, 664. Flora,' (B. Z.) 1832, t. xv, 

 p. 252 ; alao cited in ' Ann. dea Serres ct dea jardins,' vi, pp. 241-5. See 

 also Scblechtendal, Bot. Zeit.,' 1845, t. 3, p. 6. 



5 ' Bull Soc. Bot. France,' t. viii, p. 453. 



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