﻿[1903] CURRENT LITERATURE 301 



Garden 62 : 284. 1902). From the ground the stalk is almost flat, reaching 

 a width of eight and one half inches at the top, with a thickness of only a 

 quarter of an inch. The total length of the inflorescence is twenty-one inches 

 and the total height of the plant seven feet and five inches. — '* L." (Meehan's 

 Monthly 12 : 1 53. 1902) records a specimen of Liliiim superbum W\\.\\ four 

 rows of petals. Three of the stamens had been transformed and the other 

 three had distorted anthers. The editor comments on the observation and 

 refers to a case in the tiger lily. — Trottier (Bull. Soc. Bot. Italiana 

 1902:44-50. fig^, in addition to bringing together a number of examples of 

 teratological phenomena which are to be attributed to parasitic influence, 

 presents some miscellaneous observations, noting the occurrence of a hyper- 

 trophy or fasciation in the male catkin of Alnus glutinosa Gaertn., fasciation 

 of the stem in Chrysanihefuiim Leucanthemum L., fasciation and some accom- 

 panying malformations in Euphorbia Cyparissias L., abnormal leaves in 

 Fagus silvatica L,, floral proliferation, stasimorphy, and fasciation in Galega 

 officinalis L., fasciation in Passiflora coeridea L., torsion of the stem in 

 Raminctihis acer\^,^7sxvA formation of foliar ascidia in Ulmiis campestris \., 

 FocKEU (Rev. G(5n. Bot. 14 : 51 7-521. ^fg-j. 6/-($j. 1902) describes floral 

 monstrosities in Digitalis purpurea L. The abnormal flowers occupy the 

 terminal portion of the inflorescence and are divided by him into three 

 classes according to complexity of structure. The malformation, he con- 

 cludes, is due to the growing together of two or more flowers. Abnormalities 

 in the flowers of this species are especially well known and it seems hardly 

 probable that the paper contains any forms which have not been noted in the 

 very numerous papers, about twenty-live in number, which have touched on 

 this point. It is unfortunate that some of the literature was not available to 

 Fockeu. — CuSHMAN has recently published a paper (Amer. Nat. 36:865- 

 885. pis. 7-j. 1902) in which he discusses and figures some of the abnormal 

 forms of leaves in the adult plants and compares them with the seedlings of 

 the following species : Viola pedata L., Chelidoniiim majns L., Ranunculus acris 

 L., Spiraea salicifoha L.. Tanacetum vidgare L., Viola tricolor L,, and Rosa 

 rubiginosa L. He assumes that these ** localized stages '' represent the form of 

 ancestral types, and that with a knowledge of seedlings and ancestral forms, 

 these ''localized stages'' may be used to great advantage in determining the 

 phylogeny and relationships of the plant. As to whether deviations from the 

 normal structure of the kind described in the present paper belong to tera- 

 tology or not depends, very evidently, upon the way in which this very 

 differently defined term is limited, — A paper of a type which is rare in these 

 days, since it is an extensive paper on the abnormalities of plants, and of a 

 type which is rare in the literature of teratology, in that it is a monographic 

 treatment of a definitely limited field, is that of Stenzel (Bibliotheca 

 Botanica 55: 1-136. pis. 1-6. 1902). In an introduction of twenty-eight 

 quarto pages, the first section is devoted to a consideration of the value of 

 the deviations from the normal structure. In this section he reviews the 



