The practical applications of teratology deserve the attention of those cultivators who are concerned in the embellishment of our gardens and the supply of our tables. The florist lays down a certain arbitrary standard of perfection, and attempts to make flowers conform to that model. Whether it be in good taste or not to value all flowers, in proportion as they accord with an artificial and comparatively inelastic standard of this kind, we need not stop to enquire; suffice it to say, that taking the matter in its broadest sense, the aim of the florist is to produce large, symmetrical flowers, brightly and purely coloured, or if parti-coloured, the colours must be distinct, harmonious, or contrasted. When all this is done, the flower, in most instances, becomes 'monstrous' of the eyes in the botanist, though all the more interesting to the student of morphology on that account. In like manner the double flowers, the "breaks," the "sports" which the florist cultivates so anxiously, are all of them greater or less deviations from the ordinary form, while the broccolies, the cabbages, and many other products of our kitchen gardens and fields owe the estimation in which they are held entirely to those peculiarities which, by an unhappy application of words, are called monstrous by botanists. Grafting, layering, the "striking" of cuttings, the formation of adventitious roots and buds, processes on which the cultivator so greatly relies for the propagation and extension of his plants, are also matters with which teratology concerns itself. Again the difficulty experienced occasionally in getting vines, strawberries, &c., to set properly, may sometimes be accounted for by that inherent tendency which some plants possess of exchanging an hermaphrodite for a unisexual condition. For reasons then of direct practical utility, no less than on purely scientific grounds, it is desirable to study these irregularities of growth, their nature, limits, and inducing causes; and to this end it is hoped the present work may, in some degree, contribute. FOOTNOTES: [1] An excellent summary of the history of Vegetable Teratology is given in Kirschleger's 'Essai historique de la Teratologie Vegetale,' Strasburg, 1845. [2] In some instances diagrams and formulae are given in explanation of the conformation of monstrous flowers; in general these require no further explanation than is given in the text, unless it be to state that the horizontal line--is intended to indicate the cohesion of the parts over which it is placed, while the vertical line | signifies the adhesion of the organs by whose side it is placed. The formula S S S S S ------------------------ | P P P P P | | ST ST ST ST ST shows that the sepals (S) are distinct, the petals (P) coherent, and the stamens (ST) adherent to the petals.