518 
PLANTS GATHERED IN NORTH NORFOLK IN 1902. 
the soil, at the same time the individual flowers 
with their pedicels also reflex, which brings them 
upright as the stem bends downwards ; at the 
same time also from the apex of the floral axis at 
the base of the pedicels singular organs begin to 
develope which I would term calyx-radicles ; these 
develope, several in succession, from the recurved 
apex of the stem, first downwards into the soil, 
then curving laterally and finally upwards, so 
without doubt helping to bury the pods in the 
ground and retain them there ; the stiff spreading 
lobes which terminate each of the calyx-radicles 
acting like claws. Any plant will show all stages 
at once from the opening flowers to the buried 
pods, as soon as the burying process has begun. 
Many descriptions of this singular flower appear 
to me misleading. In ‘ The Student’s Flora ’ 
Hooker writes, “Pods burrowing in the earth, then 
covered by the reflexed deformed calyces of the 
other flowers” ! ! A most strange statement. 
There are no other flowers, and the three to five 
flowers of which alone the head consists have with- 
ered before the so-called “ deformed calyces” even 
begin to develop. Here is evidently an example 
of the numerous errors which appear in books on 
botany, due to the use of dried specimens uncor- 
rected by the additional use of the living book of 
nature. It is true that dried specimens do show 
what appears to be several deformed calj'ces cover- 
ing the fruit. But then the calyx-radicles are 
attenuated and withered, and their history lost. 
Another book terms them “abortive calyces;” and 
both give the false impression that the original 
heads consist of these deformed or abortive calyces 
in addition to the perfect flowers. 
Trifolium ociiroleucon, Huds. A bed of this on bank of Bran- 
caster fresh-water marsh. 
,, striatum, Linn. Abundant on sea-bank, Titchwell 
marsh. 
„ fragiferum, Linn. Brancaster fresh-water marsh. 
