Retrograde Varieties 147 



variety by the pure green color of the leaves, 

 at times when it is not in flower. Some sorts 

 of pears bear colored flowers and a red mark on 

 the stipules of their leaves. Among bulbous 

 plants many varieties may be recognized even 

 in winter by the different tinges of the outer 

 scales. 



Leaving the colors, we come now to another 

 instance of correlation, which is still more as- 

 tonishing. For it is as rare, as color-varieties 

 are common. It is afforded by some plants the 

 leaves of which, instead of being white or 

 only divided into large parts, are cleft to a 

 greater extent by repeated fissures of the mar- 

 ginal lobes. Such foliar variations are often 

 seen in gardens, where they are cultivated for 

 their beauty or singularity, as with the lacin- 

 iated alders, fern-leaved beeches and limes, oak- 

 leaved laburnums, etc. Many -of them are de- 

 scribed under the varietal name of laciniata. 

 In some cases this fissure extends to the petals 

 of the flowers, and changes them in a way quite 

 analogous to the aberrancy of the leaves. This 

 is known to occur with a variety of brambles, 

 and is often seen in botanic gardens in one of 

 the oldest and most interesting of all anomalies, 

 the laciniated variety of the greater celandine 

 or Chelidonium majus. Many other instances 

 could be given. Most of them belong to the 



