14 
slightly twisted around one another and a theca adhering to 
one of them with an excrescence of dubious character. 
That in this way an originally monophyllous part of a flower 
doubles or even triples just like a common leaf, is a remar- 
kable fact, which I have of late also observed in a monstrous 
Nicotiana affinis, showing pistillody of stamens. A few of these 
abnormal stamens bore two carpellary leaves at their tops in 
the place, of course, of only one anther’). 
For the rest, however, it should be emphasized that the way 
in which the transformation of stamens into pistils in our 
Telanthera proceeds is quite different from the process going 
on in Nicotiana, the latter producing ovules on the broadening 
connective, while the loculaments fall off. Finally it deserves 
notice that also in this plant the filaments of the pistillodic 
stamens shorten in the same degree as the metamorphosis to 
a pistil draws nearer to perfection. 
KUPHORBIACEAE. 
Hevea brasiliensis Muell. Arg. 
Habitat Brazil. 
Coll. J. H. Heyl, Culture-garden Buitenzorg. 
The attention of Mr. Smith was drawn, in 1906 by Mr. Heyl, 
to a specimen with narrow leaves which has sprung up from 
seed in the culture-garden near Buitenzorg. A comparison of 
the leaves of the ordinary plant with those of the narrow- 
leaved form shows the following figures: 
Ordinary plant: average length of the odd leaflet : 27 cM. 
” widt 1 aa ” ” : 8", ” 
Narrow-leaved variety ,, oe ede ee 4 : 
4 e <5 és Width go ‘i : 4B/, ‘ 
NB. The leaves are ternate. 
Narrow-leaved varieties in general are not unfrequent in 
Europe, for instance Olea europaea, Aesculus Hippocastanum, 
Fraxinus excelsior et cetera. It is by way of analogy not unlikely 
that the narrow-leaved specimen of Hevea will prove constant, 
1) Recueil des travaux botaniques neerlandais. Vol. IV p. 226. 
