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SCIENCE-GOSSIP.
[May 1, 1865.

tinge of green. The stamens were in most cases absent or converted into leaves, though it was impossible to say which leaves were the altered stamens, for there was by no means a leaf for every organ in the flower, as the four sepals, four petals, six stamens, and one pistil—fifteen in all—were represented in most cases by from three or four to nine or ten leaves. The ovary was also foliaceous, but not so fully developed as the outer organs. There was this remarkable point connected with the specimen, that whereas in charlock there is generally only a bunch of flowers out at once at the top of the spike, the sepals and petals of the lower flowers falling off very quickly, in this case all the foliaceous flowers were persistent, forming a leafy spike nine inches long.

Garden Rose, the old fashioned "union" with red and white streaks, in which the calyx was transformed into fine pinnated leaves, from the centre of which was produced a stalk some two inches long covered with irregular-shaped petals, some red, some greenish, the whole surmounted by a second bud with a green calyx. Such monstrosities are not at all uncommon in the garden rose, some kinds being very prone to form these irregular flowers.

Fig. 71.—Toadflax.Fig. 72.—Daisy.

Daisy, Bellis perennis (fig. 72), Cirencester, 1848, in which several of the scales of the universal calyx had grown into leaves more than half an inch long, and similar in every respect to the radical leaves of the plant.

A Pear, the fruit being apparently full grown, but producing from its eye a branch some three inches long, covered with large leaves. There is a figure of a precisely similar pear in Lindley's "Elements of Botany;" but this particular specimen was brought from Yeovil, in Somersetshire, by a student of the Royal Agricultural College, who showed it to me.

White Clover, Trifolium repens.—The specimen of which I have a drawing was gathered in Cheshire in 1859; but the same thing is to be found every year in almost every locality, the flower head consisting of a few perfect flowers intermixed with others in which the various organs, especially ovary and ovules, have shot out into bunches of leaves.

Sallow, Salix Capræa (fig. 73). Female blossoms of this plant gathered at Cirencester in 1848, in which the ovaries had become pedunculate, the stalks as long as the carpels, the greater number of

Fig. 73.—Sallow.

ovaries being split open like the ripe follicles of columbine or marsh marigold, and disclosing a number of small leaves within, attached to the edges of the follicles, and which represented the ovules.

Dog's-tail Grass, Cynosurus cristatus.—Cirencester, 1848. In this the central floret of each spikelet had extended into a bunch of leaves. A common monstrosity in several species of grass. I have a fine specimen of cock's-foot grass (Dactylis glomerata), of which every floret produces a bunch of leaves.

Common Heath, Erica tetralix, gathered on Lindow Common, Cheshire, a year or two ago, with polypetalous flowers, the urceolate corollas being split up into their component petals.

Primrose, Primula vulgaris (fig. 74).—A most curious deformity, gathered at Mobberly, Cheshire, in 1863. I was attracted to this specimen, or rather specimens, for there were two or three on the same plant, by seeing a green, leafy sack protruding from the eye of the flower, and gathered them expecting to find that the ovary and ovules had become foliaceous. They had become so, and much more, for on dissecting the finest flower, I found two complete flowers one within the other. There was the ordinary five-pointed calyx, and the usual five-lobed corolla, both the normal size, but all the internal organs had become changed into a second perfect flower. The green sack which protruded from the eye of the primrose proved to be a second fine-pointed calyx, containing a second corolla, which, however, was only four-lobed and tubular