13S A. W. Bartlett. 
ON AN ABNORMAL GYNCECEUM IN ST ACHY S 
SYLVATICA, LINN. 
[Text-Figs. 16, 17.1 
A PLANT of Stacliys sylvatica Linn., was gathered near the village 
of Medstead in Hampshire, in September, 1903 on account of 
an abnormal appearance of the flowers and the specimen was placed 
within the leaves of a book to dry. Circumstances have until 
recently prevented me from examining the plant more closely. 
The specimen consisted of two flowering shoots, which for 
convenience I shall denote as I. and II. On I. there were borne 
five verticillasters or false whorls of expanded flowers and seven on 
11., together with a few verticillasters of small flower-buds towards 
the apex of either inflorescence. The general characters of the 
plant, leaves, etc. were quite typical. 
The flowers were examined by the method usually employed 
when dealing with dried plants, i.e., they were boiled one by one in 
a little water in a test-tube for a few minutes to soften and expand 
them, after which they could be easily dissected under a magnifier 
and the form and the relation of the several parts observed. The 
three outermost whorls of the flowers presented no points of any 
special interest, but the lower lip of the corolla was rather less 
expanded and the stamens were relatively shorter than was the case 
in ordinary flowers from other plants which I examined at the same 
time for purposes of comparison. The gynceceum, however, was 
abnormal in every flower of both inflorescences and possessed some 
characters of exceptional interest. 
The form of the pistil in I. is shown in Figs. 16 (A—F) and 17, A, 
proceeding from the base of the inflorescence, or the lowest false 
whorl, towards the apex, that of II. in Fig. 17, B—E in the same 
order. The gynoeceum of an ordinary flower is shown in Fig. 17, F 
for comparison. All the figures are enlarged to four times the 
natural size of the structures. 
In the flow'ers from the first or lowest verticillaster of I. (Fig. 
16, A)which show the smallest amount of modification in the pistil, 
the ovary is much elongated, so that it is of nearly the same length as 
the style ; the four ovules which it contained were aborted as might 
have been expected, and this was found to be also the case in all 
the flowers examined. The style was much shortened and clothed 
