5210 CHANGES IN THE PISTILS. 



tojlotver inferior', but it is sometimes more conve- 

 nient and proper, for the sake of analogy or unifor- 

 mity, to use one mode of expression than the other. 



Pistils are sometimes obliterated, though oftener 

 changed to petals, in double flowers, as well as the 

 stamens; but I have met with a much more remark- 

 able change in the Double Cherry, of the pistil into 

 a real leaf, exactly conformable to the proper leaves 

 of the tree, only smaller. By this we may trace a 

 sort of round in the vegetable constitution. Begin- 

 ning at the herbage or leaves, we proceed insensibly 

 to bracteas in many species of Salvia, or to both 

 calyx and corolla in the Garden Tulip, which fre- 

 quently has a leaf half green half coloured, either in 

 the flower or on the stalk just below it. Anemone 

 alpina produces occasionally a petal among the 

 segments of its involucrum or bractea. Geum rivale, 

 JEngl. Bot. t. 106, when cultivated in dry gravelly 

 ground, exhibits such tranformations in abundance. 

 Between petals and stamens there is evidently more 

 connection, as to their nature and functions, than 

 between any other organs, and they commonly 

 flourish and fall together. Yet only one instance is 

 known of petals changing to stamens, which Dr. 

 Withering has commemorated, in the Black Currant, 

 Ribes nigrum. On the other hand, nothing is more 

 frequent than the alteration of stamens to petals. 

 Here then the metamorphosis begins to be retro- 

 grade, and it is still more so in the Cherry above men- 



