Abnormal Inflorescence m Cereus specio- 
sissimus.-The researches of Darwin have given to 
the variations and deviations of structure in organic 
beings e.g., the peloric blossoms of Pelargonium or 
Linarik, t scientific interest apart from and para- 
mount to mere novelty of form ; hence I considered 
the appearance of a truly axial or terminal flower on 
a young plant of the Cactus above-named worthy of 
record and study. Each of two plants struck four 
years ago from pieces of one and the same branch 
played, although diversely, a morphological freak, 
due’^perhaps tothe change from ‘’'e 
withered state of the parent pl^t ‘o 
ment I gave the offspring, which I will for brevity 
Sill respectively A and B. In March of last year each 
showed its first flower-bud, which in plant A was 
placed at the top of a quadrangular branch 
Lial and terminal a fashion as does a Pyramidal roof 
in the case of a Norman tower, or a finial in that of a 
spire. Plant B, the stronger of the two, and struck 
ftom the proximal half of the original branch, bloomed 
in the usual manner, « crems angulorum, as per the 
Botanical Magazine; suffused in the throat of the 
flower with the usual flush of beautiful metallic 
purple, and vented its abnormality in the produc- 
tion of many pentangular branches, instead ot 
the “^-4igon.” of the Botanical Magazine. It 
was from the first most^ interesting to study, fan 
passu, the difference between the two plants , 
the pkduncle in the case of A passing srn^ly-r.^.. 
join t, or chan ge of structtt^— 
out from the four inter-angular faces of the branch. 
The expanded flower differed from the normal in that 
the lovely purple hue was diffused over the inner 
petals to almost their very points— to such an extent, 
in fact, as to cause a photograph of the open blos- 
som to appear w^hite, owing to the blueness of the 
purple. As soon as the stigma became receptive 
I applied to it the pollen of C. Jenkinsoni, and the 
result is a fruit which is still unripe, but which shows 
.even more plainly than did the bud and flower the 
departure from the normal, especially as contrasted 
with a fruit of C. Jenkinsoni perched in the usual 
sessile manner, in ci'end anguli. There is still, in A, 
no trace of cicatrix (as from possibly aborted end of 
branch) of joint, or of intermediate structure of any 
kind, but the four green sides of the branch (about 
half an inch in width) merge smoothly (as in fig. 36) 
into the rather ovate fruit ; while the prickly fasciculi 
of the crenated edges just encroach on the berry, now 
about an inch across, and further dotted with prickles 
on raised ridges not continuous with the leaf edges. 
During the summer I looked up the literature of the 
Cactaceae, in order to find whether, morphologically 
speaking, any light might be thrown upon the present 
case by the inflorescence of other members of the 
order. Epiphyllum truncatum I knew flowered ter- 
minally, yet in that plant the fruit is truly sessile 
upon the blunted end of the branch, not, as in my < 
'• ‘case, merged smoothly into it. I was much?^ 
pleased, however, to find, Bot, Mag., anno 1839, 
t. 3566, re Cereus serpentinus, the following ; — 
“ The flower is large, handsome, fragrant— terminating 
a joint of which it seems to be a continuation ; there 
being no well-defined mark between the termination 
of the one and the commencement of the other.” Yet, ' 
curiously enough, this description is contradicted by 
the following words in the Latin preamble : — “ Flores 
///3 
Fig. 36.— terminal 
ampli, e spinarum fasciculis aut crenis anguloruni 
orti. DC.” Perhaps De Candolle had not seen the 
plant in flower, and used the formula applicable to 
most of the Cacti ; yet it seems strange that the 
