1911] BRIEFER ARTICLES 231 
pistil and the stamens of a number of peculiar irregularly shaped bodies 
representing apparently deformed carpels. These deformed carpels or 
 pistillodes, as they may be called, were present in each flower of the 
whole plant, which had about eight stems, each terminated by a many- 
flowered cyme. The number of the pistillodes in each flower varied 
from three to about ten, differing in size and development. Most of 
them were boat-shaped, distinctly curved, and with the concave side 
directed toward the normal pistil; on both margins, except near the 
base and near the apex, they bore numerous ovules partly hidden in 
the concavity and partly exposed; on each side, directly below the 
apex, a yellow oblong spot was noticeable, which apparently represented 
the rudimentary anther cells, while the variously shaped apex itself 
usually showed a greenish color like the upper part of the style, and 
represented apparently the rudimentary stigma. Sometimes two of 
€ pistillodes were more or less united at the base, and in a few cases 
pistillodes were divided at the apex; in one case I found one part of the 
divided apex representing a rudimentary anther and the other half a 
tudimentary stigma. Pistillodes with fertile anthers were not common; 
in a few cases the dilated but scarcely concave filament bore a few ovules 
on one side of the filament only and an anther larger than the normal, or 
the filament: was only dilated without ovules. In some of the smaller 
pistillodes a few of the ovules, particularly toward the apex, were changed 
into greenish elongated appendages, which usually, by a peculiar bend, 
still preserved the anatropous character of the normal ovule. This 
Phyllody of ovules is not at all uncommon with exposed ovules. 
other parts of the flower (calyx, petals, stamens, except the few deformed 
ones, and pistils) were perfectly normal in all the flowers. 
The teratological facts here described seemed interesting enough 
to be put on record, particularly as apparently no other similar case 
has been reported in the genus Hypericum. PEnzic’ records under 
Hypericum only cases of adventive buds, deviation from the ordinary 
number in the floral whorls, decrease of size in leaves, and one case of 
‘*postasis in the calyx. This tends to show that Hypericum has little 
tendency to form abnormalities, and may serve as an excuse for the 
Publication of the present case. Specimens are preserved in the her- 
barium of the Arnold Arboretum.—ALFRED REHDER, Arnold Arboretum. 
5 Pflanzen-Teratologie 1: 308, 309. 
