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like the flower of a cowslip; and within this were five perfect stamens, and a perfect pistil.

Wood Anemone, Anemone nemorosa (fig. 75).—A very interesting specimen gathered near Cirencester

in 1849 or 1850. The flower was perfect in every respect, but there was an extra fully-developed petal produced amongst the three leaves below the flower, looking exactly as if it had fallen from the flower, and had been caught by the leaves. But there it grew, as firmly fixed as the leaves themselves, showing that the three cauline leaves in this plant are really part of the flower, and ought to be considered as calyx, the petals and other organs being elevated on a stalk, as is the case with the pistils only in Geum rivale. Similarly the involucre of Erianthus and some others may be considered as true calyces.

Toadflax, Linaria vulgaris (fig. 71).—Mobberly, Cheshire, 1848. A remarkably beautiful instance of what is called the peloria form of the flower. The plant had been cultivated in a garden, and I gathered several spikes which produced flowers with two or three spurs; but one flower had become perfectly regular. The general form of the flower was that of a Florence oil flask, with a rather wide neck, the mouth divided into six teeth which were rolled backwards. There were six spurs curved upwards, and set equally round the base of the flower; and within the tube of the corolla were six equal stamens.

Calceolaria.—In 1857 I observed several flowers of a calceolaria in a green-house, which had taken on a perfectly regular form, being urceolate like the flowers of a heath. The change was in this case effected by the enlargement of the upper and smaller lip of the corolla, which was well shown in some intermediate specimens where the change was only half accomplished. Symmetry and regularity appear to be the rule in nature, and when we find a flower irregular in form, it is on account of the total suppression, the imperfect development, the abnormal increase, or the multiplication of certain parts, the change always taking place under ordinary circumstances; but the peloria form described in the two cases above appears to be an effort of nature, under the stimulus of extraordinary circumstances, to return to the regular type; and yet it is rather remarkable that when that effort is successful, and a regular symmetrical flower is produced from an irregular one, the result is not nearly so beautiful as the irregular but usual form.

A Cucumber grew a few years ago in my own garden, where one of the short prickles upon the fruit had grown out into a long curled tendril.

It would occupy too much space in this paper to point out the various teachings of all these strange forms. Such specimens exercise an important bearing upon the doctrine of morphology, that "Pons asinorum" of young botanists; but my intention is not now to write an essay upon that subject, but chiefly to direct the attention of beginners to a very interesting branch of botany, and to ask them to be on the look-out for imperfect as well as perfect specimens of plants, assuring them that careful notes of what they observe cannot fail to be of some use in the cause of botanical science, and may serve to elucidate hidden or imperfectly understood points of physiology.