4i9 
Flowers of Stachys sylvatica , Linn. 
those counted being taken at random. Comparatively few open flowers 
showed fusions, and in the counts all signs of fusing, whether in bud, flower, 
or fruit, were made note of (the half-verticillasters were counted and not 
individual flowers.) 
p. . Total half- Normal half- 
an S% verticillasters. verticillasters. 
13 4 22 33 2 
Fusions. 
90 
Normal middle 
verticillasters. 
162 
Fusions. N. side. Fusions. 
87 168 4 
It will be found that most of the fusions were in the middle half-verti- 
cillasters, and but few on the side compound inflorescences ; nearly all the 
fusions were between two flowers, but three were between three flowers. 
The only thing noticeable that was remarkable in the position of these plants 
was that they had formerly been overshadowed by a row of elm-trees growing 
on the opposite side of the road. The trees had been removed recently (in 
December, 1919). 
The symmetrical flowers are found much more rarely, but in all kinds 
of situations, and in hedgerows facing in any direction. They are in every 
case apical flowers of side compound inflorescences. 
The smaller Stachys shoots bear a series of opposite pairs of half-verti- 
cillasters arranged in a racemose manner ; larger shoots, in the pair of leaves 
just below this simple construction, will be provided with a similar pair of 
racemosely arranged verticillasters, and in plants that are even more strongly 
developed there may be several such structures. 
In fairly well developed plants, with the simplest construction, the 
flowers on the lowest verticillaster will be longer stalked than usual, and in 
the cases of symmetrically constructed flowers, that I have already described, 
it has been noted that the half-verticillasters bearing them are a little more 
complicated than usual and approximate to trichasia. 
In the symmetrical forms examined this summer it seemed clear that 
a series of transitions could be found between the simpler form of dichasium 
through the trichasium to the cases where, in a similar position, were to be 
found a series of verticillasters arranged in a spike-like manner. It is in 
these transitional forms of inflorescence that symmetrical flowers are to be 
found ; such flowers are older than the flowers immediately below them, and 
in many, if not in all, of the plants examined by me stand in the relation of 
first or older dichasial flower to the flower above it, i.e. next the main up- 
right shoot — and also to the one below it, i. e. on the side away from the 
main upright shoot. 
This apical flower often partially fuses with one of the side flowers of 
this dichasium, and then, although it can be seen that the plan of the flower 
was on a symmetrical pattern, the fused structure is contorted to one side 
and it is very difficult, if not impossible, to distinguish the parts, the corolla 
tube sometimes being open and fused with the calyx cap, which is also split. 
It seems likely, then, that the symmetry is brought about when the lowest 
