34 



treatment of vegetable abnormalities has given us a rather full 

 account of peloria (pp. 219-239) and distinguishes several types. 



A plant of Linaria preserved in spirits and exhibiting various 

 forms of peloria was recently brought to us for examination by 

 Air. Estil Kermit Handley (Figure 1). It was collected in a vacant 

 lot on the west side of Garden Avenue between East Fifth Street 

 and Sandford Boulevard, Mount Vernon, New York, in July, 1940. 

 Mr. Handley kindly gave us permission to make a more detailed 

 study of his specimen. At the same time we examined the speci- 

 mens of the species on deposit in the herbarium of the New York 

 Botanical Garden and found additional types of abnormalities, the 

 more important of which are discussed in this paper. 



In the normal flower of Linaria vulgaris, five nearly regular 

 sepals are present. The five corolla segments are fused, their outer 

 ends being represented by five lobes, two of which form the upper 

 lip and the remaining three the lower. The spur is on the middle 

 of the three segments forming the lower lip. The four functional 

 stamens are didynamous and partly fused to the base of the corolla, 

 the fifth being represented either by a minute vestigial structure 

 or is absent, no evidence of it having been found in certain instances, 

 even under the higher powers of the microscope.* It is the stamen 

 whose position would lie between the two lobes of the upper lip of 

 the corolla which has been suppressed. The ovary is two celled, the 

 septum being nearly in a plane with the split between the lips of the 

 corolla. (For details see Figures lOa-c, 11.) 



It will scarcely be necessary to take up in any great detail the 

 various forms encountered in this study. The Handley specimen 

 from Mount Vernon, New York, indicates that there is, neces- 

 sarily, no sudden change from the normal to the peloric state. 

 Instead, it is quite likely that there may be a gradual shifting of 

 physiological gradients both within the developing inflorescence 



* In this study we have had no opportunity to make any detailed observa- 

 tions either of the vascular supply or modulus of variation of stamens M'ithin 

 any great number of what otherwise — and from their external appearance — 

 would be considered normal flowers. However, in a series of plants from 

 various localities we have noted a tendency for one or both of the shorter 

 pair of stamens to be either longer or shorter than usual ; also, that the pat- 

 tern of the vascular supply of those flowers which have no remnant of a 

 fifth stamen is somewhat different from those which have it, at least in that 

 portion of the corolla adjacent to the abortive stamen. 



