Edith R. Saunders. 47 
ON INHERITANCE OF A MUTATION IN THE COMMON 
FOXGLOVE (DIGITALIS PURPUREA). 
By Edith R. Saunders ; 
Lecturer and late Fellow, Newnham College, Cambridge. 
[Plate I and Text-Figs. 1-12.] 
T HE common Foxglove is well known for its frequent habit of 
sporting, and references to various monstrous forms abound in 
teratological literature. Most of these abnormalities come under 
the head of fasciation, proliferation, synanthy or peloria. In the 
present case the modification is of quite a different character and is 
confined to the corolla, the members of which are more or less 
completely disjoined (dialysis), some or all of the petals being 
furthermore converted into stamens (staminody). The result is a 
flower which is hardly recognisable as a foxglove at all. This 
curious form, though less commonly met with than the peloric 
variety, has been known for a considerable time. Penzig 1 speaks of 
it in conjunction with syanthy and peloria as a “classic” mon¬ 
strosity; as early as 1826 it was figured and described by de 
Chamisso, 2 who names it D. purpurea heptandra. Later, in 1882, 
a specimen which had been gathered at Tilburstow Hill, Surrey, 
and sent to him, was described and figured by Henslow. 3 Analogy 
with the case of peloria would lead us to suppose that the peculiar 
modifications characteristic of the heptandra form might also be 
found to be inherited. This expectation finds a certain confirmation 
in various scattered references recording the reappearance of this 
form from time to time. De Chamisso, 4 it is true, states in a later 
note that none of the three plants which he obtained from the 
heptandra parent showed any trace of the peculiarity, but as the 
heptandra parent was not apparently isolated, this observation can 
hardly be used as evidence on this point. On the other hand a 
writer in “The Gardeners’ Chronicle” states that a seedling foxglove 
exhibiting staminody of three of the petals was derived from a parent 
similarly deformed. 5 In another instance seedlings from a specimen 
observed by Mr. Smith of Daisy Hill Nursery, Newry, are stated all 
1 Pflanzen-Teratologie 2, p. 210. 
2 De Digitali purpurea heptandra. Linnrea I, p. 371, Tab. VI. 
3 Journ. Linnean Soc., XIX, Botany, pp. 216-218, 1882, 
4 Linnaea IV, p. 77. 
3 G- C., 1874. 2, p. 78, 
