Vegetable Teratology: An Account of the Principal Deviations from the Usual Construction of PlantsMasters, Maxwell T. (Maxwell Tylden)
Science
Vegetable Teratology: An Account of the Principal Deviations from the Usual Construction of Plants
Masters, Maxwell T. (Maxwell Tylden)
Plants -- Abnormalities
As an illustration of a more complicated nature reference may be made to
three flowers of _Aconitum Napellus_, figured by A. de Chamisso,
'Linnaea,' vol. vii, 1832, p. 205, tab. vii, figs. 1, 2. In this specimen
the two outer blossoms had each four sepals present, namely, the upper
hooded one, one of the lateral sepals, and both of the inferior ones;
the central flower had only the upper sepal and one other, probably one
of the lower sepals; thus there were but ten sepals instead of fifteen.
The nectary-like petals, the stamens, and pistils were all present in
the lateral flowers, but were completely suppressed in the middle one. A
less degree of suppression was exemplified in a triple flower of
_Calanthe vestita_ sent me by Dr. Moore, of Glasnevin, in which all the
parts usually existing in three separate flowers were to be found, with
the exception of the spur belonging to the labellum of the middle flower
(figs. 15, 16).
One of the most common malformations in the Foxglove (_Digitalis_)
results from the fusion of several of the terminal flowers into one. In
these cases the number of parts is very variable in different instances;
the sepals are more or less blended together, and the corollas as well
as the stamens are usually free and distinct, the latter often of equal
length, so that the blossom, although truly complex, is, as to its
external form, less irregular than under natural circumstances. The
centre of these flowers is occupied by a two to five-celled pistil,
between the carpels of which, not unfrequently, the stem of the plant
projects, bearing on its sides bracts and rudimentary flowers. (See
Prolification.) An instance of this nature is figured in the 'Gardeners'
Chronicle,' 1850, p. 435, from which the cut (fig. 17) is borrowed.
[Illustration: FIG. 17.--Synanthy and other changes in a Foxglove.]
One of the most singular recorded instances of changes connected with
fusion of the flowers is that cited by Reinsch,[43] where two female
flowers of _Salix cinerea_ were so united with a male one as to produce
an hermaphrodite blossom.
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