256 Ranunculus Auricomus and Anemone Coronaria. 
Fig. 2. Ranunculus auncomus. 
m, Transition forms between “ petal ” 
and “sepal,” n, bract-like sepal. 
Fig. 3. Anemone coronaria , 
Displacement of “ sepal ” into 
the involucral whorl. 
Bible. The majority of the flowers have from six to nine deep 
scarlet petaloid sepals and no petals. From 1 to 6 cm. below the 
flower an involucre is situated and usually consists of three separate 
bracts which are deeply and irregularly lobed. Amongst a 
consignment of well dried specimens of this species collected in 
Central Palestine by Capt. G. H. Ogilvie was found one which 
shows a sepal, normal in size, colour, venation and indumentum, 
but arising in the involucral whorl 2 cm. below the remaining nine 
sepals of the flower, Fig. 3. One of two explanations is possible, 
that a sepal has become misplaced, its primordium having been left 
behind when the pedicel above the bracts lengthened, or that an 
involucral bract has become abnormally metamorphosed into a 
sepal. The former seems the more probable because three normal 
bracts are present in the involucral whorl in addition to the sepal. 
REFERENCES. 
1. Worsdell. “ The origin of the perianth of flowers.” New Phytologist 2, 
pp. 42, 116, 1903. 
2. Rendle. “ The origin of the perianth in seed-plants.” l.c., p. 66. 
3. Davis. Knuth’s “ Handbook of flower pollination.” 2, pp. 28-29. 
