GENESIS. 287 



marked; and it is still more marked when, as occasionally 

 happens in luxuriantly-growing plants, new flowering axes, 

 and even leaf-bearing axes, grow out of the centres of 

 flowers.* The anatomical structure of the sexual axis 



affords corroborative evidence : giving the impression, as it 

 does, of an aborted sexless axis. Besides lacking those inter- 



* Among various examples I have observed, the most remarkable were 

 among Foxgloves, growing in great numbers and of large size, in a wood 

 between Whatstandwell Bridge and Crich, in Derbyshire. In one case the 

 lowest flower on the stem contained, in place of a pistil, a shoot or spike of 

 flower-buds, similar in structure to the embryo-buds of the main spike. I 

 counted seventeen buds on it ; of which the first had three stamens, but 

 was otherwise normal; the second had three; the third, four; the fourth, 

 four ; &c. Another plant, having more varied monstrosities, evinced excess 

 of nutrition with equal clearness. The following arc the notes I took of its 

 structure: 1st, or lowest flower on the stem, very large; calyx containing 

 eight divisions, one partly transfprmed into a corolla, and another trans- 

 formed into a small bud with bract (this bud consisted of a five-cleft calyx, 

 four sessile anthers, a pistil, and a rudimentary corolla) ; the corolla of the 

 main flower, which was complete, contained six stamens, three of them 

 bearing anthers, two others being flattened and coloured, and one rudiment- 

 ary ; there was no pistil but, in place of it, a large bud, consisting of a three- 

 cleft calyx of which two divisions were tinted at the ends, an imperfect 

 corolla marked internally with the usual purple spots and hairs, three 

 anthers sessile on this mal-formed corolla, a pistil, a seed vessel with ovules, 

 and, growing to it, another bud of which the structure was indistinct. 2nd 

 flower, large; calyx of seven divisions, one being transformed into a bud 

 with bract, but much smaller than the other ; corolla large but cleft along the 

 top ; six stamens with anthers, pistil, and seed-vessel. 3rd flower, large ; 

 six-cleft calyx, cleft corolla, with six stamens, pistil, and seed-vessel, with a 

 second pistil half unfolded at its apex. 4th flower, large ; divided along the 

 top, six stamens. 5th flower, large; corolla divided into three parts, six 

 stamens. 6th flower, large; corolla cleft, calyx six cleft, the rest of the 

 flower normal. 7th, and all succeeding flowers, normal. 



While this chapter is under revision, another noteworthy illustration has 

 been furnished to me by a wall-trained pear tree which was covered in the 

 spring by luxuriant "foreright" shoots. As I learned from the gardener, it 

 was pruned just as the fruit was setting. A large excess of sap was thus thrown 

 into other branches, with the result that in a number of them the young pears 

 were made monstrous by reversion. In some cases, instead of the dried up 

 sepals at the top of the pear, there were produced good sized leaves ; and in 

 other cases the seed-bearing core of the pear was transformed into a growth 

 which protruded through the top of the pear in the shape of a new shoot. 



