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XLIIL —ON SOME ABNORMAL FLOWERS OF PRIMULA, 
BY Proressor M‘NAB, M.D., F.L.S. 
[Read November 17th, 1879.] 
WirHIn the last year or two I have obtained at different times 
abnormal flowers of Primula, and a brief record of their pecu- 
liarities may not be uninteresting. 
The first was a fasciated example of Primula vulgaris, given to 
me by Mrs. Hull, in April 1874. It has a flat enlarged peduncle 
and two corollas at the top within one calyx. The large calyx con- 
sists of 15 parts, united for about the normal distance, the teeth 
above being all quite distinct. Inside this are the two corollas, one 
to the right normal, the other to the left monstrous. The normal 
corolla consists of five parts, with five superposed stamens, and an 
apparently normal macrostylous stigma, with five united carpels. 
The second flower to the left has ten parts of the corolla, all 
nearly uniform in size, so arranged that three of them have both 
margins down ; two have both margins up, the remaining five 
have the left margin down and the right margin up, and over- 
lapping the neighbouring lobe of the corolla. The ovary is double, 
of ten carpels; the style is double with the parts completely 
adherent, and having a two lobed stigma at the apex. The 
fasciation has thus resulted in the production of two flowers within 
one calyx, but evidently the whole is made up of three flowers 
joined. 
The second specimen also of Primula vulgaris was gathered 
at Howth, in April 1878, and the whole of the flower is perfectly 
normal, except that the stigma is markedly bilobed. The ovary 
does not seem to consist of more carpels than usual, to judge by 
the number of the fibro-vascular bundles. This flower is 
macrostylous. | 
The third specimens are of Primula elatior. Jacq. and were 
gathered in Glasnevin Gardens in August 1879. The plant pro- 
duced only two flowers in the umbel, and both were abnormal, 
exhibiting typical miomery of parts :—viz. four parts of calyx, 
four of corolla, four stamens, and as far as can be judged by the 
fibro-vascular bundles, four carpels. In one of these flowers one 
of the parts of the calyx is bilobed, but so slightly as to preclude 
the idea of its being a perfect fifth part of the calyx. 
