206 Observation of the Origin of Varieties. 



pdlen is poorly developed and the capsule is practically 

 atrophied; but not to such an extent that fertile seeds 

 are never produced, as some investigators seem to think, ^ 

 for some attcm])ts to harvest seed have been successful. 

 W^iLLDEXow records an experiment in which such seed 

 lias given rise almost exclusively to peloric plants. - 



The Peloria, or Linaria vulgaris peloria is character- 

 ized by the fact that all its flowers are peloric. This 

 character is, it is true, subject to considerable fluctuating 

 variability, especially in the number and degree of devel- 

 opment of the spurs. But I never found normal one- 

 spurred flowers amongst them, although since 1894 I 

 was able to observe in my cultures several hundreds of 

 peloric flowers every year, and in favorable years even 

 many thousands of tliem. 



Besides this Peloria, as already stated, there are some- 

 times found on the ordinary Linaria vulgaris isolated 

 peloric structures, which are subject to a high degree of 

 fluctuating variability (Fig. 41). The most usual case 

 is a single flower on a plant which does not bear anotlier 

 afterwards during the whole course of the summer. 

 Sometimes I found 2 or even 3 peloric flowers on the 

 same plant, both in the wild and in the cultivated state, 

 ])ut seldom a larger number. It often happens that an 

 individual which has produced the abnormality in its first 

 vear will not produce a single one in the second, although 

 it branches more freely and bears many more flowers ; 

 on the other hand the abnormality sometimes reappears. 

 Such isolated pelorias are not limited to any particular 

 position f' although in my garden they usually occurred 



^ Verlot, Production et fixation des varictcs, p. 90. 



' De Candolle. Physiologic vcgctalc, IT, p. 692. My experience is 

 in full agreement with that of Wim.denow. (See p. 216.) 



' See Pexzig, loc. cit., p. 195 



