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VEGETABLE TEKATOLOGT. — ABNORMAL CALCEOLARIAS. 
state of the external temperature, lowering in dark cloudy weather, and raising with an increased 
degree of light and heat ; but it is always well to have plenty of heat at command, in order to ensure 
the free admission of air, day and night, without which it is impossible to have good Melons. I keep 
the shoots well thinned out to allow the air to circulate amongst the leaves freely, making it a rule to 
pinch off a few at a time, rather than a great many at once. 
Though I have grown Melons without water, early ones in particular, they are lovers of plenty of 
moisture at the roots when the fruit is swelling, more especially the Persian and Cabool varieties. An 
officer of the 29th regiment remarked to me the other day, that he had found them in their native 
habitats growing by the sides of streams amongst the wet mud, and luxuriating as if it were in a 
" hot ditch." I give plenty of water when the fruit is swelling, and frequently give weak clear liquid 
manure. As soon, however, as the fruit has ceased swelling, watering on the surface soil must he 
discontinued, as watering would then injure the flavour of the fruit. Still, however, I would not 
entirely withhold atmospheric moisture, but employ it in subdued quantity, believing that a healthy 
action of the leaves is indispensible to the production of highly flavoured fruit. It is about this time 
that the pipes spoken of above come into use, and if a nice bottom heat be still maintained, small 
quantities of water may be poured down, which will spread over the turf, to be absorbed by the tender 
rootlets, which will ramify over every part of the turf, and thus be ready after the fruit is cut to start 
into action for the production of a second, or even a third, crop of fruit. 
A good state of health is almost insect-proof, but in order to make " assurance doubly sure," it is 
well to make a paint of sulphur, soot, lime and clay, and put a few daubs in different parts of the 
frames ; the fumes of this will annihilate all the tribe of red spiders, and will not injure the plants. 
I cannot close without recommending as a late Melon, a variety called the Dampsha ; it does well 
to follow a crop of frame potatoes, and it will keep for two months after being cut. I have not seen it 
mentioned in any of the nursery catalogues, though it is nearly A. 1, in point of flavour. I had seeds 
from Mr. Ogle last year, whom I beg to thank publicly for bringing into notice this excellent variety. 
VEGETABLE TERATOLOGY.*— ABNORMAL CALCEOLARIAS. 
By Dr. MORREN, Professor op Botany in the University of Liege. 
7TUIE Abbe Van Oven, professor of physical and natural sciences of St. Trond, sent me a collection of 
I\ very remarkable Calceolarias, among which two forms of the greatest interest were carefully pre- 
served. The Abbe truly observed, that it was desirable not to forget those extremely rare cases in 
which nature sometimes works, not in violation of her laws, but in deviation, so to speak, of her most 
common habits. These remarkable structures arc indeed revelations, the interpretation of which ought 
not to be neglected. 
M. Moquin-Tandon, in Ms classification of vegetable monstrosities, forms a class in which the devi- 
ation of the specific type is connected with the form. These deviations are of two kinds : they arc 
either changed from one organ into another, and then they constitute metamorphoses, or they are alte- 
rations which, being irregular, become deformations ; or, being regular, constitute Pe/orias. 
M. Van Oven's pelorias of the Calceolaria were produced by some garden varieties of corymbosa, 
crossed first by pcndula, the resulting varieties subsequently intermingled. An analogous form of 
peloria was seen in l.N.'l.'i by M. dc Chamisso, in the Calceolaria rugosa, and later by Guillemin. The 
specimen of M. Van Oyen differs from these, chiefly by its great size, colour, and form : it forms the 
third example of the kind which has been recorded. 
The Calceolaria is, as is known, a scroplmlariaccous plant, having normally an equally divided four- 
parted calyx, and an hyppgynous corolla formed of a very short tube, and a limb of two lips, the supe- 
rior one short, truncated and rounded, entire; the inferior very large, prolonged in the form of a slipper, 
and concave. The flower is furnished with two stamens, inserted on the tube of the corolla, scarcely 
exscrted; the anthers bilocular, the cells separate divaricate, one often sterile. The ovary is bilocularj 
the placentas mulfi-ovnled; the style simple, the stigmate pointed. Such is the type of the genuine 
flower. The following is a description of the peloria of Van Oyen : — Two flowers alike normal grew 
to the right and left of the summit of the floral branch. This summit was itself terminated by a pelor- 
ized flower which measured not half-an-iuch long, like that of Guillemin, hut nearly four inches. It 
was not, as may lie seen from the figure, a dwarf monster. The calyx was conformable to the normal 
flower. The corolla had the form of a Rhenish wine flask, much elongated, straight at both extremi- 
ties, inflated at the middle, the part towards the summit being contracted like the neck of a bottle; th 
summit of the corolla itself was still further contracted, and tapered in the form of the mouthpiece of 
• From Fitchiin, mi JReeueU ^Observations do JBotanigve, &o, Brussels. I 
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