34 INHERITANCE. Chap. XIII. 



by ine. That this papilla Is a rudiment of a stamen was well shown 

 by its various degrees of development in crossed plants between the 

 common and the peloric Antirrhinum. Again, a peloric Galeob- 

 dolon luteum, growing in my garden, had five equal petals, all striped 

 like the ordinary lower lip, and included five equal instead of four 

 unequal stamens ; but Mr. B. Keeley, who sent me this plant, 

 informs me that the flowers vary greatly, having from four to six 

 lobes to the corolla, and from three to six stamens. 71 Now, as the 

 members of the two great families to which the Antirrhinum and 

 Galeobdolon belong are properly pentamerous, with some of the 

 parts confluent and others suppressed, we ought not to look at the 

 sixth stamen and the sixth lobe to the corolla in either case as due 

 to reversion, any more than the additional petals in double flowers 

 in these same two families. But the case is different with the fifth 

 stamen in the peloric Antirrhinum, which is produced by the 

 redevelopment of a rudiment always present, and which probably 

 reveals to us the state of the flower, as far as the stamens are con- 

 cerned, at some ancient epoch. It is also difficult to believe that 

 the other four stamens and the petals, after an arrest of develop- 

 ment at a very early embryonic age, would have come to full 

 perfection in colour, structure, and function, unless these organs 

 had at some former period normally passed through a similar course 

 of growth. Hence it appears to me probable that the progenitor of 

 the genus Antirrhinum must at some remote epoch have included 

 five stamens and borne flowers in some degree resembling those now 

 produced by the peloric form. The conclusion that peloria is not 

 a mere monstrosity, irrespective of any former state of the species, 

 is supported by the fact that this structure is often strongly in- 

 herited, as in the case of the peloric Antirrhinum and Gloxinia and 

 sometimes in that of the peloric Corydalis solida. 1 ' 2 



Lastly I may add that many instances have been recorded of 

 flowers, not generally considered as peloric, in which certain 

 organs are abnormally augmented in number. As an increase 

 of parts cannot be looked at as an arrest of development, nor as due 

 to the redevelopment of rudiments, for no rudiments are present, 

 and as these additional parts bring the plant into closer relationship 

 with its natural allies, they ought probably to be viewed as rever- 

 sions to a primordial condition. 



These several facts show us in an interesting manner how 

 intimately certain abnormal states are connected together; 

 namely, arrests of development causing parts to become rudi- 

 mentary or to be wholly suppressed, — the redevelopment of 



71 For othei* cases of six divisions "•- Godron, reprinted from the 



in peloric flowers of the Labiatas and ' Jlemoires de l'Acad. de Stanislas,' 



Scrophulariaceae, see Moquin-Tandon, 1868. 

 ' Teratologie.' p. U'2. 



