TRANSFORMATIONS OF FLOWERS.

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office of a leaf; they are also incapable of forming leaf-buds in their axils. But, although such is the case, there is found a strong and general tendency on the parts of both the floral envelopes and sexes to change to leaves, similar to the leaves of the stem.

Fig. XVI.-Transformation of Clover.

In the white clover (Trifolium repens, Fig. XVI.) all the parts often become leaves; in the Fraxinella (Fig. XVII.) this has also been

remarked.

Partial alterations into leaves are in fact of very frequent occurrence in the parts of a flower. In the Rose, the sepals and pistil

Proceedings of the Horticultural Society, vol. i. p. 37.

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FLOWERS GROW INTO BRANCHES.

are frequently changed into leaves, of which the case represented in the following cut (Fig. XVIII.) is a most striking example. In this case the

Fig. XVIII.-Transformation of a Rose into a branch.

calyx-tube was absorbed or not developed; the sepals were half converted into leaves; the petals were more than half changed into sepals; the outer carpels were partly in their customary state, those nearer the centre were converted into small leaves, and the remainder were carried up upon the axis or centre, which had lengthened into a branch in every conceivable state of transition, until the last-formed, namely, the

FLOWERS PRODUCE BUDS AND TUBERS.

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uppermost, assumed the usual appearance of the leaves of the stem. (See Gardeners' Chronicle, 1847, p. 171, for this and similar facts.) In the Double Cherry, the pistil is almost always to be found in the form of a leaf; and books on structural botany abound in the records of similar cases. It sometimes happens that buds are not only formed, but developed, at the axils of the parts of a flower, as in a Celastrus

scandens observed by Kunth (Fig. XIX.). Rose-buds are frequently seen growing out of Roses. A very striking and uncommon accident was observed by the late Mr. Knight in the Potato (Fig. XX.), whose

flowers produced young potatoes in the axils of the sepals and petals.* Occasionally, the centre of a flower lengthens and bears its parts upon its sides, as in the Pear and Apple, whose fruit is often found in the state of a short branch. Still more rarely a flower lengthens, and produces from the axils of its parts other flowers arranged over its sides, as in the Double Pine-apple of the Indian Archipelago.

Proceedings of the Horticultural Society, vol. i. p. 39, fig. 2.

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FRUIT GROWS INTO BRANCHES.

The following cuts represent three Pears, produced in different places, and in different conditions. A Pear blossom consists of a calyx composed of five sepals; within these appear five petals, next to which stand about twenty stamens; and in the centre of all are five carpels, or hollow cases, arranged in a ring, and containing seeds. All these parts are regarded in theory as leaves in an altered state, and the whole flower as a very short branch, destitute of the usual power of lengthening, or, which is the same thing, as a leaf-bud, the centre of which will not extend. In the beginning the sepals, petals, stamens and carpels of a Pear flower were scales, placed upon a fleshy centre, and not distinguishable from those scales which in the leaf-bud become leaves. To use a gardener's language, there was at first no difference between the blossom-bud and the wood-bud. But, after a time, the parts which were identical begin to be organized differently; in the blossom-bud they gradually change into sepals, petals, stamens, and carpels; in the wood-bud they become young leaves. But if anything occurs to disturb the development of the blossom-bud as a blossom, then it becomes a wood-bud, or approaches that state, more or less, according to the period at which the disturbing force began to act. It thus appears that whether a bud becomes a flower or a branch, depends entirely upon some unknown force, which acts at a particular moment upon parts originally of identical nature and quality, and capable of becoming leaves; if this action is complete, a flower is the result; if incomplete, a monster; if altogether withheld, then the rudimentary parts, not having their nature changed, proceed to acquire the condition of leaves. Hence it is that when from accidents, such as unusual heat and wet at a critical moment, exuberance caused by the excessive application of rank (azotized) manure, or any circumstances of a similar nature, the usual order of development is disturbed, flowers are not formed-or we have them converted into tufts of leaves, or even branches. The following examples offer conclusive evidence as to the truth of this theory :

Fig. XXI. represents a Pear, in which the calyx and its five sepals are not much disturbed, but in which the petals and

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part of the stamens, developed in the form of leafy scales, adhere round the centre of the flower, which has lengthened somewhat like a branch, while the remainder of the stamens and the carpels are concealed within the summit, in the form of withered rudiments. The constitutional tendency to fleshiness, which is the characteristic of the Pear, is not lost, in this or either of the two other cases, but is preserved throughout, only diminishing towards the eye.

In Fig. XXII. the phenomena take a somewhat different direction, the leafy tendency being greater in some of the sepals, but the tendency to acquire succulence having been preserved in a far greater degree; as if the disturbing cause, whatever it may have been, which originally prevented the young parts from becoming petals, &c., and which forced the centre to lengthen like a branch, was effectually withdrawn and overcome by the tendency to become succulent, which the parts had already acquired, when the disturbing cause began to act.