IRREGULAR PELORIA. 229 
prodigy, was applied to it.'| After atime other irregular 
flowers were found in-like condition, and so the term 
peloria became applied to all cases wherein, on a plant 
habitually producing irregular flowers, regular ones 
were formed. The fact that this regularity might arise 
from two totally different causes was overlooked, or at 
least not fully recognised, even by Moquin-T'andon 
himself. Where a flower retains throughout life the 
same relative size in its parts that it had when those 
parts first originated the result is, of course, a regular 
flower, as happens in violets and other plants. This 
kind of peloria may for distinction sake be called 
recular or congenital peloria (see chapter on that 
subject) ; but where a flower becomes regular by the 
increase in number of its irregular portions, as in the 
Tinaria already alluded to, where not only one petal 
is spurred, but all five of them are furnished with such 
appendages, and which are the result of an irregular 
development of those organs, the peloria is evidently 
not congenital, but occurs at a more or less advanced 
stage of development. ‘To this latter form of peloria 
it is proposed to give the distinctive epithet of 
irregular. 
Peloria is either complete or incomplete; it 1s com- 
plete when the flower appears perfectly symmetrical, it 
is incomplete when only a portion of the flower is thus 
rendered regular. It is very common, for instance, to 
find violets or Linarias with two or three spurs, and 
these intermediate stages are very interesting, as they 
1 * Ameen. Acad.,’ i, p. 55, t. iii (1744) :—The following note refers to 
Linné’s notion that these forms were due to hybridization. It is 
extracted from Gmelin’s edition of the ‘Systema Nature,’ 1791, p. 931. 
“ Tinarie proles hybrida, ejusdemque qualitatis et constans, radicibus 
infinite sese multiplicans charactere fructificationis diversissima, corolla 
regulari, quinque-corniculata, pentandra, ut genus proprium absolute 
constitueret et distinctissimum, nisi fructus frequentissime abortiret. 
Nature prodigium. Ita quidem a Linné. Verisimilior autem videtur 
ea opinio, que peloriam pro peculiari degeneratione monstrosa floris 
habet, in quam inclinare hoc genus (Linaria) pre aliis, similis a forma 
deflexio in aliis speciebus, e.g. spurio Elatine, eymbalaria, observata, 
ae Merk., ‘Goett. gel. Anz.,’ 1774, n. 121. Linck, ‘ Annal. 
Nature.,’ i, p. 32.” 
