Vegetable Teratology / An Account of the Principal Deviations from the Usual Construction of Plants

by Maxwell T. Masters

Sometimes from the side of a flower-stalk or scape, which usually does not bear leaves, those organs are produced. The common dandelion, Taraxacum, sometimes offers an illustration of this, and also the daisy (Bellis).[153] In a specimen of fasciated cowslip given me by Mr. Edgeworth there was a similar formation of leaves on the flattened stalk.

Production of leaves or scales in place of flower-buds.—The position of the leaf and of the flower-buds respectively is, in most plants, well defined, but occasionally it happens that the former is formed where, under ordinary circumstances, the latter organ should be. This may happen without the formation of any transitional organs between the two, and without actual increase in the number of the buds. Where there is evidently a passage from leaf-bud to flower-bud, or vice versâ, the case would be one of metamorphy. If the number of buds be augmented, or they be mixed with the flower-buds, then it would be referable to leafy prolification of the inflorescence. There remains a class of cases wherein there is a complete substitution of one structure for the other, it may be without the slightest indication of transition between the two, and without any admixture of leaf-buds among flower-buds, or any absolute increase in the number of organs, as in Prolification. Such a case is represented in fig. 78, which shows a portion of the stem of a species of Valeriana, bearing at the summit, not an inflorescence, but a tuft of leaves without the slightest indication of flowers.

Drs. Hooker and Thomson relate that in Northern India the flowers of Anemone rivularis are very generally absent, and their place supplied by tufts or umbels of leaves.[154] In the collection of the late Mr. N. B. Ward was a specimen of lupin in which the flowers were all absent, and their place supplied by tufts of leaves.

Fig. 78.—Tuft of leaves replacing the inflorescence in a species of Valeriana.

A similar appearance has been noticed in Compositæ, and I owe to the kindness of Professor Oliver the communication of a specimen of a species of Bidens from Peru, in which the capitula, instead of consisting of florets, as usual, contained tufts of linear ciliolated bracts within the involucre, without a trace of flowers. In the eleventh volume of the 'Linnæa,' 1837, p. 301, Von Cesati figures and describes an analogous case in Carduus crispus. The same author[1] records a similar instance in the umbel of Seseli coloratum, where the place of the flowers was occupied by stalked tufts of leaves. In the 'Gardeners' Chronicle,' October 6th, 1860, p. 894, is mentioned an instance where the blossoms of the pea were entirely absent, and their place supplied by accumulations of small, ovate, green scales, thus presenting an appearance similar to that brought about by the inordinate multiplication of the sepals in the "wheat-ear carnation," and in the Sweet William, and not unlike the condition met with in Bryophyllum proliferum. In Digitalis purpurea a similar anomaly is sometimes met with.

In the apple I have observed leafy shoots bearing terminal tufts of leaves where the flower should have been, so that what, under ordinary circumstances would be a corymb of flowers, is here represented by a series of tufts of leaves. In the cultivated azaleas also, leafy shoots occupying the position of the flower may occasionally be met with.

In Bouchea hyderabadensis I have seen the inflorescence more than usually branched and covered with little tufts of bracts, without a trace of true flower. A similar condition seems not infrequent in Gentiana Amarella, as I have not only met with the plant myself in this condition, but have been favoured with specimens by Mr. Pamplin, Mr. Darwin, and others. In Phyteuma spicatum an analogous appearance has been recorded.

Among Griffith's collections from Affghanistan is a species of willow (Salix) in which the inflorescence replaced by a much branched panicle, bearing a quantity of minute bracts, in the axils of which nestle numerous small buds. In another specimen the inflorescence preserves its usual catkin-like shape, but the flowers are replaced by little tufts of leaves. M. Germain de Saint Pierre mentions a case wherein the flowers of Alisma parnassifolia were completely replaced by leaf-buds.[155]