68 NATURE-STUDY REVIEW !15:2— Feb., 1919 



anthocyanin. Usually the flower stalk is straight, although 

 occasionally it is bending, the reason for which will be described 

 later. 



Borne terminally on the flower stalk is the solitary flower. The 

 flowers vary little in size, so that most of them are 2^4 to 4 cm. 

 across. The flowers possess all four circles the outer of which con- 

 sists of two pale, green caducous sepals. The second whorl — the 

 petals — is the most showy part of the flower. The petals vary in 

 number from four to sixteen. I have sorted collections from two 

 days into groups containing flowers having the same petal number 

 and have plotted them on accompanying graphs in order to illus- 

 trate the variation iri frequency of petal number for different locali- 

 ties. Figure 4 shows the petal frequency for flowers collected at 

 Crum Creek, and Figure 5 shows the same for flowers collected 

 along Pennypack Creek. The flowers having 7 and 8 petals 

 arranged in two tiers, three and four and four and four respectively. 

 The seven-petaled flowers are very rare and the eight-petalled flow- 

 ers occur frequently. Four possibly is the original petal number. 

 The sixteen petal flowers are the quadruple ones, but these are 

 rare. The flowers with petals varying from nine to fifteen are 

 quite frequent. These extra petals are developed from the 

 stamens. I found several small or reduced petals which bore at 

 the side a tiny yellow streak and which showed the structure of an 

 anther. The flowers are usually white, but there are frequently 

 pink, blue, lavender or faintly purple colorations on the under 

 surface of the petals. I thought this difference in coloration was 

 due to some chemical difference in constitutions, but I found on one 

 rhizome which was two branched, one flower which was pure white, 

 and one which was decidedly lavender. 



The stamens vary in number from twenty to forty-eight and 

 their number bears no definite relationship to the petal ntunber, so 

 that I found eight-petalled flowers having 24, 25, 29, 30, 31 and 32 

 stamens; nine petalled flowers having 24, 26, 27, 31, and 36 

 stamens, 10 petalled flowers bearing 25, 27, 31 and 36 stamens; 11 

 petalled flowers bearing 20, 26, 30 and 35 stamens; and 12 petalled 

 flowers having 26 and 33 stamens. These are only a few of the 

 records which I have, but they will serve to illustrate. There is 

 only one pistil with a two-lobed stigma, very short style and long 

 slightly thickened ovary, which develops into the two-lobed fruit 

 already d<.scribed. 



