158 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



tuft. The highest ones may be considered the prototype of the feather- 

 like pedicels of the variety. 



Another instance of reduction of flowers is seen in a most curious 

 abnormality in maize (fig. 41), which, from time to time, although very 

 rarely, occurs in cultures of the normal sorts. All the flowers of the 

 male spike are absent ; sometimes a small tuft of bracts or of little naked 

 branches is seen at the top, but, often, even this is absent and the whole 

 spike is reduced to a single spindle. Here not only the absolute bulk of 

 the inflorescence is diminished, but the whole form is altered and de- 

 pauperated. It is therefore to be described as a case of degeneration. 



In the wheat-ear carnation also the flowers are absent, but replaced 

 by green ears of little bracts (fig. 42). These bracts are the same as those 

 which, in the ordinary carnation, are found at the base of the flower. 

 Here they are arranged in alternating pairs, only a small number of 

 such pairs protecting the lower part of the calyx of each flower. In the 

 wheat-ear carnation there is an increase of the number of these bracts, 

 so as to produce the appearance of ears. As the whole flower is sup- 

 pressed the variety becomes sterile. This monstrosity can be multiplied 

 and preserved by cuttings, but from a horticultural point of view there is, 

 evidently, no use in doing so. On the other hand, many varieties of our 

 garden carnations produce the wheat-ear plants, from time to time, and it 

 is, perhaps, the most interesting instance of a species producing the same 

 striking anomaly at irregular intervals of time. 



These wheat-ear carnations are sometimes seen to produce instances 

 of reversion or atavism. In such cases the plant bears some normal 

 flowers among the mass of green ears. Intermediate forms arise, con- 

 stituting small or only partly developed flowers on the top of green ears, 

 or better organized flowers with only some supernumerary pairs of bracts 

 at their base. This is an instance of atavism, showing how the lost 

 qualities of the species are not absolutely lost, but simply reduced to the 

 latent condition. In this connexion, it is most interesting to see how 

 the atavistic flowers on the wheat-ear plants do not revert to the original 

 wild type of the carnation, but to the special characters of the variety 

 from which they sprang. In my own garden, a wheat- ear carnation 

 reverted in this manner and produced beautifully doubled dark-brow r n 

 flowers, which it had evidently inherited, though in latent condition, 

 from its parent-variety. 



Here we recognize, in a most typical case, the bearing of the science 

 of teratology on the doctrine of evolution. In cases of specific or generic 

 atavism, the parents to which a form reverts are not, of course, empirically 

 known, and the whole explanation rests on an hypothesis. In the wheat- 

 ear carnation, on the other hand, the parents from which they sprang are 

 alw r ays still in cultivation, and the reversions may be directly compared 

 with them. The conception of atavism is no longer an hypothesis, but 

 is supported by a complete set of facts and observations. 



One of the most curious instances of an hereditary anomaly is the 

 Nepaul barley. It is a cultivated and constant variety, which has attracted 

 the attention of many botanists. Masters gives a full description of it, 

 with many figures, some of which are reproduced in fig. 43. In the 

 ears of this plant, it is the outer palea which shows the deviation from 



