330 Nutrition and Selection. 



The rule for ordinary branching is that the anomaly 

 diminishes with the higher orders of branching, omitting 

 from consideration, of course, the strengthening and 

 repetitional shoots. Every one knows the beautiful case 

 of Myosotis azorica Victoria {M. alpestris var.), Avhich 

 has been on the market for many years, and was de- 

 scribed bv ]\1 AGNUS. -^ This heritable anomaly has a verv 

 much extended flower at the top of its main axis, often 

 consisting of more than 10 and sometimes over 20 petals 

 in one row. The number of sepals and stamens has cor- 

 respondingly increased. The subsequent flowers of the 

 inflorescence have become much less compound and the 

 number of petals gradually diminishes during the course 

 of the flowering period, until finally only pentamerous 

 and hexamerous flowers are produced. Chrysantheniuni 

 inodoriini plenissiniiiin manifests a similar periodicity, 

 and the number of petals in Ficaria ranunculoides and 

 Ccntaurea Cyanus are in the same manner dependent on 

 the order of branching.- Veronica Biixbawnii, according 

 to Bateson and Pertz, bears the largest number of 

 anomalous flowers at the beginning of the flowering pe- 

 riod, that is to say, just before it is at its height.^ il/v<^- 

 surus niijiinius bears the more single flowers the w^eaker 

 these are.^ A number of similar cases have already been 

 ccjllected by Munting in the seventeenth century, and 

 recently by Burkill amongst others.'"* 



^ Verhandl. d. Bot. Ver. d. Prov. Brandenburg, XXIV, 1882, p. 

 119, PI IV. 



"J. Mac Leod, Botanisch Jaabock, Gent, 1899, Vol. XI. 



^\y. Bateson and Miss Pertz, Notes on the Inherilonee of Vari- 

 ation in the Corolla of Veronica Biixbaumii, Proceed. Cambridge 

 Phil. Soc, X, Part 2, p. 78 (1898). 



*H. MiJLLER, Nature, Vol. XXVI, 1882, p. 81. 



^ A. Munting, Waare oeffeninge, 1671 ; J. IT. Burkill, Linnaean 

 Soc. Journ. Bot., Vol. XXXI, 1895. p. 216. 



