Thiselton-Dyer . — Morphological Notes . 555 
cotyledon bifide, tandis que l’autre en montre un profonde- 
ment biparti. Dans celle-ci 3 les deux lobes cotyledonaires 
ressemblent assez, de grandeur et de configuration generale, 
au cotyledon entier, pour que chacun d’eux put facilement 
etre regarde comme un cotyledon distinct et separe. Mais 
si Ton observe que la fente qui les separe descend un peu 
moins profondement que celle qui existe entre les deux vrais 
cotyledons ; si, de plus, on fait attention a la situation des 
deux petites feuilles primordiales deja developpees, qui alter- 
nent avec le cotyledon biparti comme avec celui qui est rest^ 
entier, on ne pourra conserver le moindre doute sur le phdno- 
mene de division qui a valu a cette germination son apparente 
polycotyledonie.’ 
Nothing apparently could be clearer than this explanation, 
but unfortunately it does not meet the facts as they presented 
themselves at Kew. In PI. XXIV, Fig. 2, I have figured 
a seedling with three perfectly distinct and normal cotyledons 
and three equally normal young leaves developed from the 
plumule. It is difficult to see how such a case is to be 
reduced to the ordinary type by any theory of bipartition. 
A number of such anomalous seedlings were carefully taken 
up, potted and grown on. PI. XXV, Fig. 4, shows the result 
at the end of the second year. It will be seen that I obtained 
a young sycomore with ternary instead of opposite leaves, 
and I was in hopes that I had secured a new seminal variation 
which would be constant. These hopes were, however, frus- 
trated, as in the third and following year the seedlings reverted 
to the ordinary type with opposite leaves. 
Such cases of plants with opposite varying with whorled 
leaves are not uncommon, though in some species it is rarer 
than in others. Of the former S tacky s palustris , in which 
I have met with three leaves in a whorl, is an example. 
The fact was not overlooked by Linnaeus, who observes : — 
‘ Opposita folia saepe evadunt Terna, seu Quaterna, et turn 
ex caule Quadrangulari fit caulis Polygonus’ (Philosophia 
Botanica, 241). 
I mentioned the matter in conversation to the late Professor 
