PROP. CREPIN : VEGETABLE MONSTROSITIES. 



227 



although monstrous, have not so many parts as the flower I have just des- 

 crihed. Lastly, the third axis, which is the most broadly fasciated, is strongly 

 recurved ; it gives birth at its summit to a great number of filiform pedicels, 

 of which the flowers, apparently normal, are very small and unopened. Its 

 upper extremity is surrounded with floral elements more or less atrophied, 

 very dense and numerous. 



IX. Geum rivale, L. 

 (Median prolification.) 



This Geum has already many times presented instances of median proli- 

 fication, which have been described ; but as the present one may perhaps offer 

 some new peculiarities, I would say a word regarding it. 



The stem only bore a single terminal flower, the calyx of which was 

 transformed into a large rosette, seven centimetres (three-tenths of an inch) in dia- 

 meter, formed by six leaves or rather six bracts, reduced to their terminal 

 lobe and furnished with stipules ; the petals, more lengthily unguiculate than 

 usual were eleven in number; the andrcecium was reduced to twelve stamens. 

 From the centre of the flower, deprived of its pistil, a thickened axis arose, 

 four centimetres (one-eight of an inch) long, at the base of which were, first, two 

 petiolate leaflets, one half of each being petalloid, then, three other leaves, 

 oval-oblong, crenulate, completely herbaceous, and longly petiolate. Arranged 

 round the proliferous axis, were three leaves reduced to their terminal lobe, 

 and without stipules ; and on its summit was a verticil of seven similar 

 leaves enclosing a kind of bud formed by a flower apparently incomplete and 

 monstrous. 



X. Crepis biennis, Mobnch, and Tragopogon pratense, L. 



(Malformation.) 



At the time of the excursion of the " Eoyal Society of Botany of 

 Belgium" in Bas-Luxembourg last year, I encountered in a meadow near 

 Yirton, several roots of Crepis biennis, of which the heads of the flowers pre- 

 sented a strange aspect. They were very much enlarged at the summit, the 

 involucre being greatly forced open to allow the flowers to push out. This 

 anomalous enlargement was due to the hypertrophy of the pappus, the 

 hairs of which were transformed into narrow elongate and greenish scales. 

 On these plants, all the capitula were affected with this deformation, and the 

 elements of the pappus were more numerous than in the normal flower. The 

 ovary was more or less atrophied. 



