SCIENTIFIC COMMITTEE, APRIL 25. 



XXV 



been drugged, seems to have changed the colour of its flowers, 

 aliquis latet error. In the particular case of the Bardfield Oxlip, 

 which I grow in many spare corners of my garden, I find the 

 duration of life of the plants to be about four years. Seedlings 

 take the place of those that die, and are often amalgamated with 

 them flowering all together ; so that it seems that one with dull 

 red flowers (always the first departure from the typical colour in 

 the Primula veris, L., class) appears to be part of the same plant 

 which is bearing yellow flowers. By the next year the yellow- 

 flowering plant is probably dead, and the red-flowering one has 

 quite superseded it." On carefully washing the mould away from 

 the " clump " sent by Mr. Dod, it was readily resolved into seven 

 perfectly distinct plants, six bearing yellow flowers and one being 

 dull red flowered, thus entirely corroborating Mr. Dod's account 

 of the origin of a change of colour being by seed only. 



Erythronium grandiflorum, Giant form, &c. — Mr. Wilson 

 exhibited a flowering spike of this plant, 16 inches in height, with 

 leaves proportionally large. It appeared first in 1892 among some 

 seedlings, and is considerably larger in the present year. He also 

 showed a specimen of Narcissus triandrus, remarkable for its 

 strong growth, bearing four instead of the usually two flowers ; 

 also an umbel of a Primula, with the flowers dissociated along 

 the peduncle. 



Jilyosotis, Proliferous and Mo.ny -Retailed. — Dr. Bonavia ex- 

 hibited sprays of this variety, which is now in the market. The 

 petals are often as many as nine or ten in number, though no 

 flower appears to be " double." Two or three flowers are some- 

 times fused together as in Tomatos. An examination of this 

 variety made by the Secretary showed that instead of the separate 

 flowers along a common peduncle, as in the ordinary Forget-me- 

 not, each flower is represented by a raceme, a proliferous condition 

 sometimes seen in Solomon's Seal, Bluebells, &c. The individual 

 flowers were characterised by "symmetrical increase," the sepals, 

 petals, and stamens being multiplied uniformly. The pistil 

 was malformed, consisting of a conical structure, the stylar tube 

 being open above, with a rudimentary stigmatic border. About 

 eight ovules were arranged in a circle at the base of the ovary, 

 the placentation being thus free central. The terminal flower on 

 the main axis was very remarkable, recalling somewhat similar 

 malformations often seen in Foxgloves, Larkspurs, &c. It con- 



