IRREGULAR PELORIA. 237 
deviations from the ordinary form of one plant repre- 
sent the ordinary condition of another ; thus, the peloric 
Calceolarias resemble the flowers of Fabiana, and De 
Candolle,' comparing the peloric flowers of Scrophula- 
riacee with those of Solanacew, concluded that the 
former natural order was only an habitual alteration 
from the type of the latter. Peloric flowers of Papi- 
lionacee im this way are indistinguishable from those 
of ftosacee. In like-manner we may trace an analogy 
between the normal one-spurred Delphiniwnm and the 
five-spurred columbine (Aquilegia), an analogy 
strengthened by such a case as that of the five- 
spurred flower of Delphiniwm elatum described by 
Godron.” The Corydalis, before referred to, is another 
illustration of the same fact, the structure being the 
same as in Dielytra, &e. 
The ordinary irregular flowers may possibly be 
degenerated descendants of a more completely organ- 
ized ancestor, and some of the cases of peloria may 
therefore be instances of reversion; some ancient 
Iinaria may, perhaps, have had all its petals spur- 
shaped, and the cases of irregular peloria now found 
may be reversions to that original form. When both 
regular and irregular forms of peloria occur on the 
same plant, as they frequently do in Linaria, the one 
may be perhaps considered as a reversion to a very 
early condition, the other to a later state, when all the 
petals were irregularly formed. But before we can 
assert the truth of this surmise we must have better 
evidence as to what the original condition really was 
than we have at present. 
The proximate cause of irregular peloria has been 
considered to be excess of nourishment, but evidence 
as to this point is very conflicting. Willdenow states 
that “‘ radices peloriz, solo sterili plantate, degenerant 
in Linariam,”’ (‘ Sp. Plant.,’ i, p. 254); but this opinion 
is counterbalanced by that of others, while the frequent 
1 *Théor. Elém.,’ ed. 2, p. 266. 
? Cited in ‘ Bull. Soc. Bot. France,’ vol. xiii (Rev. Bibl.), p. 81. 
