Presumptive Mutations in Wild & Cultivated Plants 61 



produced full double flowers. 1 Many other instances of doubling 

 in this species are on record from Asa Gray, Thomas Meehan and 

 others. Doubles are also recorded in many species of Ranunculus. 

 Thus R, rhoniboideus is sometimes found double in Floyd Co., 

 Iowa. 2 One such specimen was transplanted and continued to 

 produce only double flowers. A specimen of R. repens L. collected 

 near Camden, New Jersey, had 10 petals (an extra whorl). 8 R. 

 multifidus Pursh at Grand Rapids, Mich., frequently has double and 

 quilled flowers, often with the scales (nectaries) changed to 

 tubular appendages. 4 R. acer, R. bulbosus and R. ficaria are all 

 said by Meehan 8 to have double forms. He points out that 

 doubling is rarely due to cultivation, although numerous double 

 forms of Ranunculus now occur in seed catalogues. 



Records of doubling in the Canadian mayflower, Epigcea 

 repens, also abound, though the change is not so regular as in 

 other forms, there being great variation in the nature of the 

 doubling. A specimen from Worcester, Mass., continued to 

 produce doubles for several years. 4 The stamens were partly 

 converted into petals, the outer series being more or less coalescent 

 into a tube. Other records are from New Brunswick and 

 Massachusetts, the latter being a specimen with flower having 

 three corollas, one within the other, the stamens absent or 

 abortive. 7 At Plymouth, New Hampshire, double flowers were 

 observed 8 year after year, with great variation in the degree of 

 doubling. Three-fourths had two whorls of 5 petals each, and 5 

 stamens alternate with the inner petals. In a few flowers nearly 

 all the 10 stamens were transformed into petals, and in all the 

 carpels were transformed to leaves. 



In Hepatica triloba Gil. one specimen with strongly double 

 flowers was found (Hilbert, 1913) near Sensburg, Germany, in 1894, 

 surrounded by singles. In 1912 another double specimen with 

 blue flowers was found in the same place. It was transplanted to 

 a garden and flowered double the following year, but gave no seeds. 

 The stamens were changed to petals. There is also in cultivation 



1 Amer. Nat. 2: 610, 1869. 



1 Arthur, J. C., Amer. Nat. 6 : 427, 1872. 



Bot. Gazette 1 : 5, 1875. 



Bot. Gazette 2 : 90, 1877. 



Amer. Nat. 2 : 484, 1869. 



A. Gray, Am. Nat. 6 : 429, 1872. 



Bailey, W. W., Bot. Gaz., 6 : 238, 1881. 



Wilson, Kate E., Bot. Gaz. 15 : 19, 1890. 



