132 THE STRUCTURE OF FLOWERS. 



and stamens often occurs in pelorian Pelargoniums, Horse- 

 chestnut, etc. 



If pelorian forms were equally constant as the one-spurred 

 condition, botanists would undoubtedly have recognized them 

 as species, or perhaps genera, as it is the comparatively 

 slight difference in the length of the spur upon which they 

 separate Linaria from Antirrhinum. Similarly Corydalis has 

 normally but one spar and one nectary. It, however, bears 

 occasionally two spurs and has two nectaries, as in Dicentra. 



" Peloria, then," as Dr. Masters observes,* "is especially 

 interesting, physiologically as well as morphologically. It is 

 also of value in a systematic point of view, as showing how 

 closely the deviations from the ordinary form of one plant 

 represent the ordinary conditions of another ; thus the peloric 

 ' sleeve-like ' form of Calceolaria resembles the flowers of 

 Fahiana, and De Candolle, comparing the peloric flowers of 

 the Scrophulariacece with those [the normal ones] of Solanacece, 

 concluded that the former natural order was only an habitual 

 alteration from the type of the latter. Peloric flowers of 

 Papilionacece in this way are undistinguishable from those 

 of Bosacece. In like manner we may trace an analogy between 

 the normal one-spurred Delphinium and the five-spurred 

 Aquilegia, an analogy strengthened by such a case as that of 

 the five-spurred flower of Delphinium.'" 



* Teratology, p. 236. 



