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ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



tlie spadixj tlie abortive ovaries reduced to small angular pro- 

 minences. 



Two varieties occur — the one with broad obtuse leaflets, di- 

 stinctly variegated, the other with lanceolate acute leaflets which 

 are variegated, with the variegation on the midrib feathered. 



XLI. On some Double Flowers of Primula sinensis. (In a Letter 

 to the Eev. M. J. Berkeley.) By Dr. Maxwell T. Masters. 



My dear Sir, — I have examined some twenty or more flowers 

 of the Chinese Primrose to which you kindly drew my attention. 



The structural arrangements of Primulacese are so remarkable 

 that it behoves botanists to collect and observe any facts relating 

 to them, so that we may arrive at the proper explanation of the 

 morphology of the order. 



In the flowers that I examined, there was nothing specially 

 worthy of notice in the calyx : the number of its lobes was in- 

 creased • and there were other minor deviations from the ordinary 

 structure, which, however, do not call for comment. 



The corolla was of the ordinary form, its tube traversed by ten 

 vascular cords, and its limb divided into as many lobes, these 

 latter again often split up into several secondary lobes. 



Springing from the tube of the corolla, generally from about its 

 centre, were a number of adventitious petals (very often five in 

 number, sometimes more) disunited and placed in front of the 

 normal petals, not alternate with them — in fact, in the usual posi- 

 tion of the stamens. To the centre of the inner surface of these 

 supernumerary petals perfect stamens were occasionally adherent. 

 In some of the flowers there were, in addition to these, other ru- 

 dimentary petaloid bodies, sometimes filiform, at other times 

 tubular. In one or two instances the supernumerary petals, in- 

 stead of being placed with their outer surface in front of the 



inner surface of the true petal, dos a vis ^25^ , were so placed 



that the inner (or upper) surface of one was placed in front of the 



arrangement, which occurs also in other double flowers, gives rise 

 to a first impression that prolification, the formation of an ad- 

 ventitious bud either in the centre of the flower or in the axil of 

 one of its lateral organs, is the cause of this appearance ; a longi- 

 tudinal section, of the flower, however, soon dissipates that notion, 



corresponds 



ing surface of the other, vis-a-vis 



This 



