1897 ] BRIEFER ARTICLES 293 
hairs. The shape of the scales changes rapidly with the centripetal 
advance. The outer and smaller ones are nearly orbicular. From 
this shape they broaden into ovate, and then into oblanceolate. It 
will happen in some buds, not in all, that scales will occur showing a 
retuse apex; then some more deeply emarginate and much narrower. 
Lastly, there will be one showing in the apical cleft a trace of true 
pinnation in the leaves. 
The foliage proper consists of leaves, varying in number, standing 
erect upon the petioles and convolutely packed. Each of the leaflets 
is involutely rolled, and all are closely appressed. A sticky and sweetly 
odorous exudation helps to guard the leaves. 
In full development the inner scales, several inches in length, 
become reflexed, and, with their beautiful salmon color, passing into 
green, or even of a rich claret red, resemble the petals of some 
gorgeous flower.—WiILLIAM WHITMAN BalLey, Brown University. 
ABNORMAL LEAVES AND FLOWERS. 
Mr. FOERSTE’s interesting article on ‘Curious leaves”’ in the June 
GAZETTE induces me to place on record a couple of instances which I 
have lately observed here in Mesilla. One 
IN day Professor E. O. Wooton brought in a YW 
~ y; handful of Clematis ligusticifolia, which Ni 
WZ was placed in a bowl for ornament. Look- A 
Wi ing over it, I was surprised to see that W 
4 many of the flowers had two of the petal- 
oid sepals coalesced for more than half 
Fic, 1. Fic. 2. 
their length (fg. 7, from a dried flower). 
At about the same time, raising some Solanum eleagnifolium from 
seed, I found a seedling in which the cotyledons were coalesced for 
over half their length (jg. 2), so that the plant was no longer dicot- 
* yledonous. 
These examples, as also, perhaps, Mr. Foerste’s figs. 7 and 2, are 
the result of abnormal coalescence. In the case of Mr. Foerste’s elm 
leaves the interpretation is more obscure; but at all events, they have 
nothing to do with the other cases figured (figs. 3 and 4) by Mr. 
Foerste, in which we have simply an arrest of the central axis. 
There is a cottonwood (Populus Fremontii) here in Mesilla which 
