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VII. On a Sexual Monstrosity, consisting in the ا‎ of Polleniferous Ovules, in 
two Species of Passiflora. By S. JAMES A. Safer, M.B., F.R.S., F.L.S., F.G.S. 
(Plate XXIV.) 
Read June 4th, 1863. 
IN the summer of 1860 Dr. Dresser gave me several specimens of a curious monstrosity 
in the ovaries of Passionflowers which had bloomed in his garden at Hammersmith, the 
plant producing these being the common Passiflora cerulea. A few weeks afterwards 
I found monstrosities of a precisely similar kind on another species of Passionflower 
(P. palmata), growing in a greenhouse at Selborne in Hampshire. Unfortunately Dr. 
Dresser's plant died in the winter of 1860-61, and no more specimens could be obtained 
from that source. In the summer of 1861 I had no opportunity of examining the plant 
at Selborne, but in 1862 I collected from thence great numbers of these malformations. 
The specimens were essentially the same in both species, though they differed a good 
deal as to the degree in which the ovaries were malformed and the sex perverted. I may 
mention that the examples upon which, in this paper, my descriptions are founded, and 
from which the illustrations have been drawn, were obtained from the Selborne plant. 
The monstrosities in question consisted in a partial and persistent separation of the 
carpels, thus opening the cavity of the ovary; in the development of anther-like bodies 
along the free edges of the separated carpels; and, further, in the conversion of certain 
of the ovules themselves into sacs of pollen, —these ovules being for the most part mal- 
formed, but in a few exceptional cases of perfect anatomy, barring the presence in 
them of the pollen. 
Before describing the particulars of my specimens, I would remark that monstrosities 
of a somewhat similar kind have been found in a few instances in other plants, with this 
important difference, however, that there is no recorded example in which the ovules 
themselves have been polleniferous. 
Moquin-Tandon, in his comprehensive work on Vegetable Teratology*, enumerates 
some examples in which the pistil has been converted into an anther or anthers, or in 
which antheroid organs have been developed within the substance of the carpels; but he 
remarks that such monstrosities are uncommon, and that from their rarity doubtless it 
is that many authors, among others Gmelin and Schultz, have denied their existence. 
M. Reeper has observed this phenomenon in Euphorbia palustris and in Gentiana 
campestris: in these examples one of the carpels seemed to be wanting, and was found in 
the form of an anther. The same observer has seen a flower of Impatiens in which a 
supernumerary stamen exactly occupied the place of a wanting carpel. 
* Eléments de Tératologie Végétale, par Moquin-Tandon. Paris, 1841. 
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