104. 



SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



[Mat 1, 1865. 



tinge of green. The stamens were in most cases 

 absent or converted into leaveSj though it was im- 

 possible to say which leaves were the altered 

 stamens, for there was by no means a leaf for every 

 organ in the flower, as tlie four sepals, four petals, 

 six stamens, and one pistil — fifteen in all — were 

 represented in most cases by from three or four to 

 nine or ten leaves. The ovary was also foliaceous, 

 but not so fully developed as the outer organs. 

 There was this remarkable point connected with the 

 specimen, that whereas in charlock there is gene- 

 rally only a bunch of flowers out at once at the top 

 of tlie spike, the sepals and petals of the lower 

 flowers falling off very quickly, in this case all the 

 foliaceous flowers were persistent, forming a leafy 

 spike nine inches long. 



Gaiiden Rose, the old fashioned " union " with 

 red and white streaks, in M^hicli the calyx was trans- 

 formed into fine pinnated leaves, from the centre of 

 which was produced a stalk som.e two inches long 

 covered with irregular-shaped petals, some red, 

 some greenish, the whole surmounted by a second 

 bud with a green calyx. Such monstrosities are 

 not at all uncommon in the garden rose, some kinds 

 being very prone to form these niegular flowers. 



Fig'. 71.— Toadflax, 



Fig. 72.— Daisy. 



Daisy, Bellis perennis (fig. 73), Cirencester, 1848, 

 in which several of the scales of the universal calyx 

 had grown into leaves more than half an inch long, 

 and similar in every respect to the radical leaves of 

 the plant. 



A Pear, the fruit being apparently full grown, 

 but producing from its eye a branch some thi'ee 

 inches long, covered with large leaves. There is a 

 figure of a precisely similar pear in Lindley's " Ele- 

 ments of Botany ;" but this particular specimen was 

 brouglit from Yeovil, in Somersetshire, by a student 

 of the Poyal Agricultural College, who showed it 

 to me. 



White Clover, Trifolivmrepens. — The specimen 

 of which I have a drawing was gathered in Cheshire 

 in 1859 ; but the same thing is to be found every 

 year in almost every locality, the flower head con- 

 sisting of a few perfect flowers intermixed with 



others in which the various organs, especially ovary 

 and ovules, have shot out into bunches of leaves. 



Sallow, Salix Capraa (fig. 73). Female blossoms 

 of this plant gathered at Cirencester in 1848, in 

 which the ovaries had become pedunculate, the 

 stalks as long as the carpels, the greater number of 



Figr. 73.— Sallow. 



ovaries being split open like the ripe follicles of 

 columbine or marsh marigold, and disclosing a 

 number of small leaves within, attached to the 

 edges of the follicles, and which represented the 

 ovules. 



Dog's-tail Grass, Cynosurus crlstatus. — Ciren- 

 cester, 1848. In this the central floret of each 

 spikelet had extended into a bunch of leaves. A 

 common monstrosity in several species of grass. I 

 have a fine specimen of cock's-foot grass {Dadylis 

 glomeratd), of which every floret produces a bunch 

 of leaves. 



Common Heath, Erica tetraUx, gathered on 

 Lindow Common, Cheshire, a year or two ago, with 

 polypetalous flowers, the urceolate corollas being 

 siflit up into their component petals. 



Primrose, Primula vulgaris (fig. 74). — A most 

 curious deformity, gathered at Mobberley, Cheshire, 

 in 1863. I was attracted to this specimen, or rather 

 specimens, for there were two or three on the same 

 plant, by seeing a green, leafy sack protruding 

 from the eye of the flower, and gathered them 

 expecting to find that the ovary and ovules had 

 become foliaceous. They had become so, and much 

 more, for on dissecting the finest flower, I found 

 two complete flowers one within the other. There 

 was the ordinary five-pointed calyx, and the usual 

 five-lobcd corolla, both the normal size, but all the 

 internal organs had become changed into a second 

 perfect flower. The green sack which protruded 

 from the eye of the primrose proved to be a second 

 fine-pointed calyx, containing a second corolla, 

 which, however, was only four-lobed and tubular 



