a lUmarkable geformitu in a Jflotocring 

 of dharlork. 



By NELSON M. RICHARDSON, B.A., 

 F.E.S. 



the 25th of May, 1889, 1 was walking along a path 

 through a corn field, on Radipole Farm, near 

 Weymouth, on the look-out for anything interest- 

 ing, but chiefly for anything entomological, which 

 would probably at that season take the form of a 

 rolled-up leaf or spun-up shoot with a larva 

 inside, when my attention was arrested by a flowering stem of 

 charlock, or wild mustard (Brassica arvensisj, two or three yards 

 from the path, which had a very peculiar appearance. The plant 

 was abundant in the field, but this stalk seemed to be deformed in 

 some way, so I picked and examined it. This flower stalk is quite 

 normal until within three or four inches of the tip, at which point it 

 gives off a small thin branch just over Jin. in length, which again 

 joins the main stem about 2 Jin. higher up, this main stem being bent 

 over downwards so as to meet the small branch, forming a closed some- 

 what circular figure, nearly an inch in diameter. After this second 

 junction the main stem continues its course for more than an inch, and 

 terminates in the usual way with a few small flower buds in fact, 

 if the small joining branch were removed and the stem stretched 

 out straight, there would be nothing strikingly remarkable about it. 



