112 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



The Winter Aconite. — This plant and some Hellebores exhibited 

 by Messrs. Barr and Sons afforded an opportunity of explaining how some 

 petals have arisen out of anthers. Both of these genera have'a yellow, white, 

 green or purple coloured calyx, but no corolla. In lieu of the latter there 

 are numerous little nectaries. These consist of short tubes supported on 

 little pedicels. Transitional examples clearly show that they are con- 

 structed out of abortive anthers, which are open at the top, the 

 jwtition arrested, the pollen suppressed, and instead of it the inner 

 surface secretes honey. 



In some species of Ranunculus, such as the Goldilocks (B. auricomus), 

 transitional structures of a similar nature may be found, but passing over 

 into petals, by one, the outer side of the nectary, becoming larger. Now, if a 

 true petal of a Buttercup be compared it will be seen at once that this 

 side has expanded into the orbicular petal, while the nectary is now 

 represented as a small pit at the base of the inner surface, the inner side 

 of the anther still remaining as a tiny flap in front of it. 



In Water Lilies the transition between stamens and petals is a normal 

 occurrence, but in this case the filament broadens into a petal, while the 

 anthers disappear from the edges. If they be looked at in a comparative 

 way with leaves, then we might say it is the blade which becomes the 

 petal in Aconite, but the petiole in the Water Lily. A similar contrast is 

 seen in the formation of bracts. In the Hellebore a perfect transition 

 between a leaf with its divided blade and the small, oval pointed bract 

 can be readily traced, when it will be seen that the bract is entirely 

 "homologous" with the petiole, the blade being altogether suppressed; 

 whereas in Buttercups, the bracts on the flowering stems consist of the 

 much degraded segments of a blade, reduced in number to three, two, or 

 one, while the petiole is suppressed. 



Hybrid Hellebores. — Mr. Barr exhibited an interesting series of 

 hybrids, or rather crosses according to Mr. Baker's view, who considers 

 H. orientalis to be a true species. This is a native of Macedonia, Thrace, 

 Asia Minor, and the neighbourhood of Constantinople. It has at least 

 nine varieties, three with white sepals, including the type, two with 

 white sepals tinged with green, two vdth. decidedly green sepals, and 

 three with sepals of a deep purple colour.* The crosses in question 

 lie betAveen the vars. cjuttatus and antiquorum, which are white, 

 with colchicus and abchasicus, which have purple flowers ; but as 

 several of the progeny have greenish-purple flowers this result is probably 

 due to the admixture with the true species, H. viriclis, or with the var. 

 caucasicus of H. orientalis, which has green sepals. This orientalis 

 group has the advantage of possessing evergreen foliage ; as the old 

 leaves remain on the plants until the new ones supersede them. It may 

 be added that Mr. Baker recognises seven varieties of H. viridis, a native 

 of England, as also is H. fcetidus. Mr. Baker writes, " H. viridis is, I 

 beheve, truly wild in the woods of the limestone hills of the North of 

 England, growing with such plants as Actcea spicata and Aquilegia 

 vulgaris', " but both the above species were wild in the village of Hitcham, 

 Suffolk, and collected by the late Prof. J. S. Henslow, whose specimens 



* See Gard. Cliron. 1877, p. 466. 



