640 Mutations 



Poppies have been recorded to bear bracts 

 analogous to the little scales on the flower-stalks 

 of the pansies, on the middle of their flower- 

 stalks. A similar case is shown by the yellow 

 foxglove or Digitalis parviflora. The foxgloves 

 as a rule have naked flower-stalks, without the 

 two little opposite leafy organs seen in so many 

 other instances. The yellow species, however, 

 has been seen to produce such scales from time 

 to time. The honeysuckle genus is, as a rule, 

 devoid of the stipules at the base of the petiole, 

 but Lonicera Etrusca has been observed to 

 develop such organs, which were seen to be free 

 in some, but in other specimens were adnate 

 to the base of the leaf, and even connate with 

 those of the opposite leaf. 



Other instances could be given proving that 

 bracts and stipules, when systematically lack- 

 ing, are liable to reappear as anomalies. In 

 doing so, they generally assume the peculiar 

 characters that would be expected of them by 

 comparison with allied genera in which they are 

 of normal occurrence. There can be no doubt 

 that their absence is due to an apparent loss, 

 resulting from the reduction of a formerly 

 active quality to inactivity. Resuming this ef- 

 fective state, the case attains the value and sig- 

 nificance accorded to systematic atavism. 



A very curious instance of reduced bracts, de- 



