METAMORPHOSIS. 1 28 



sporophylls of Benvettites, would never be recognized 

 as, or credited with, having such an ancestry in the 

 past, if the ulterior facts were not known. But in the 

 male sporophylls of Bennrttites {Gycadeoidea) we see 

 an interesting transitional form between the ancient 

 and the more modern type of sporophyll, for these 

 structures still retain a somewhat fern-like organiza- 

 tion of leaf, although they are, like the sporophylls of 

 so many Angiospermous flowers, arranged in a whorl. 



It is, therefore, practicallj'^ certain that in the 

 Pteridosperm-Cycad phylum we have an objective case 

 before us of the evolution of the flower- and cone- 

 structure from an elongated leafy shoot ; i. e. of the 

 shoot becoming congested, and the leaf-like sporophylls 

 becoming reduced and simplified to the modern cycad- 

 sporophylls, and crowded in dense spirals or in whorls 

 on the shortened axis. If this is true of the flowers 

 and cones of the cycads, it must be equally true of the 

 very similarly organized flowers of the Angiosperms. 



After these introductory remarks on the evolution 

 of the flower the facts of its abnormal metamorpho- 

 genesis will be set forth. The phenomena are best 

 classified under the headings of the various types of 

 floral leaves. 



Before considering the various changes which affect 

 the different kinds of floral members attention may be 

 directed to the types of change induced in all the organs 

 of the flower at the same time and in the same way. 



Phyllody. — The phenomenon which many authors 

 have named " chloranthy " consists in the transforma- 

 tion of all the floral leaves into foliaceous structures. 

 The best-known example of this is the " green rose," 

 a frondescent variety of tlie monthly rose (Rosa imlica); 

 here sepals, petals, stamens, and carpels are in the form 

 of green leaves ; but these are small in size and simple 

 in conformation, and do not in any way resemble the 

 ordinary foliage-leaves of the plant. Magnus mentions 

 that a flower of Anemone ranunculoides attacked by the 



