ABSTRACTS OF BOTANICAL PAPERS READ AT THE 
DETROIT MEETING OF THE A. A. A. 5S. 
THE following papers were presented before Section G, and 
in most cases the abstracts are those prepared by the author. 
The vice presidential address of Professor George F. Atkinson, 
entitled ‘Experimental morphology,” is published in full else- 
where. 
Cuarces A. Davis; Trillium grandiflorum (Michx.) Salisb. , 2s 
variations normal and teratological.—The variations are largely of 
a type common to most species of plants, in the shapes of leaves, 
petals, and sepals, and in the varying length of petioles. In 
several hundred abnormal specimens the simplest departure was 
marked by the presence of green stripes in the petals. This 
striping was accompanied by lengthening of the petioles and 
degeneration of the pistil. About fifty specimens were studied 
in which the leaves had either entirely disappeared or were 
reduced to bracts. In such forms the stamens are the most 
stable of the organs of the flower, only a few reversions to the leaf 
type occurring, while the pistil was usually sterile, rarely con- 
taining ovules, frequently being reduced to the leaf form, and 
sometimes containing well marked whorls of leaves. The petals 
of this form were usually nearly all green. Variations from the 
normal form of rootstock, and in the number of parts in each 
whorl of the plant to two and four, were also noted. 
E. J. Duranp: A discussion of the structural characters of the 
order Pezizinee of Schroeter.— Read by title. 
K. M. Wiecanp: The taxonomic value of fruit characters in the 
genus Galium.—In certain species of Galium the fruit is saucer 
shaped, in other closely related species cup shaped, and in others 
the edge of the cup is so constructed as to leave but a pore con- 
necting the hollow interior with the exterior. 
1897 | 187 
