Chap. X. FLOWERS. 38y 



{Anuilegia vulgaris) Rome of the stamens are converted into petals 

 liaving the shape of nectai'ies, one neatly fitting into the other; but 

 in one variety they are converted into simple petals.'''^ In the " hose 

 in hose" prinmlse, the calyx becomes brightly coloured and enlarged 

 so as to resemble a corolla; and Mr. W. Wooler informs me that 

 this peculiarity is transmitted ; for he crossed a common polyanthus 

 with one having a coloured calyx/'^ and some of the seedlings 

 inherited the coloured calyx during at least six generations. In the 

 " hcn-and-chicken" daisy the main flower is siirrounded by a lirood 

 of small flowers developed from buds in the axils of the scales of the in- 

 volucre. A wonderful poppy has been described, in which the stamens 

 are converted into pistils ; and so strictly was this peculiarity inherited 

 that, out of 154 seedlings, one alone reverted to the ordinary and 

 common type.^'^ Of the cock's-comb {('ehmia crisiata), which is an 

 annual, there are several races in which the flower-stem is wonder- 

 fully "fasciated" or compressed; and one has been exhibited'^* 

 actually eighteen inches in breadth. Peloric races of Gloxinia 

 sjjeciosa and Antirrhinum majics can be propagated by seed, and 

 they differ in a wonderful manner from the typical form both in 

 structure and appearance. 



A much more remarkable modification has been recorded by Sir 

 William and Dr. Hooker"^ in Bvgoniafrigida. This plant properly 

 produces male and female flowers on the same fascicles ; and in the 

 female flowers the perianth is superior ; but a plant at Kew pro- 

 duced, besides the ordinary flowers, others which graduated towards 

 a perfect hermaphrodite structure ; and in these flowers the perianth 

 was inferior. To show the importance of this modification under a 

 classificatory point of view, I may quote what Prof. Harvey says, 

 namely, that had it "occurred in a state of nature, and had a 

 botanist collected a plant with such flowers, he would not only have 

 placed it in a distinct genus from Begonia, but would probably 

 have considered it as the type of a new natural order." This modi- 

 fication cannot in one sense be considered as a monstrosity, for 

 analogous structiires naturally occur in other orders, as with 

 Saxifragte and Aristolochiacese. The interest of the case is largely 

 added to by Mr. C. W. Crocker's observation that seedlings from 

 the normal flowers produced plants which bore, in about the same 

 proportion as the parent-plant, hermaphrodite flowers having inferior 

 perianths. The hermaphrodite flowers fertilised with their own 

 pollen were sterile. 



If florists had attended to, selected, and propagated by seed other 



'" Moquin-Tandon, ' Elements de vol. iv. p. 322. 

 Teratologie,' 1841, p. 213. '" ' Botanical Magazine,' tab. 5160, 



"^ iSfee also 'Cottage Gardener,' fig- 4; Dr. Hoolcer, iu 'Gardener's 



1860, p. 133. Cliron.,' 1860, p. 190; Prof. Harvey, 



•'5 Quoted by Alph. de CandoUe. in ' Gardener's Chrnn.,' 1860, p. 145 ; 



B bl. Univ.,' November 1862, p. 58. Mr. Crocker, in ' Gardener's Chron.,* 



"■• Knight, 'Transact. Hort. Soc.,' 1861, p. 1 92. 



