n]. Mr. Moggridge has communicated to
the author an account of certain flowers of _Ophrys aranifera_, in which
the petals were deficient, sometimes completely, at other times one or
two only were present.

=Meiophylly of the androecium.=--Suppression of one or more stamens,
independently of like defects in other whorls, is not uncommon, even as
a normal occurrence, _e.g._ in _Carlemannia_, where the flower, though
regular, has only two stamens, and other similar deficiencies are common
in Dilleniads.

Seringe relates the occurrence of suppression of some of the stamens in
_Diplotaxis tenuifolia_,[468] St. Hilaire in _Cardamine hirsuta_, others
in _C. sylvatica_.

In _Caryophyllaceae_ suppression of one or more stamens has been observed
in _Mollugo cerviana_, _Arenaria tetraquetra_, _Cerastium_, &c.[469]
Among violets the writer has observed numerous flowers in which two or
three stamens were suppressed. Chatin[470] alludes to a similar
reduction in _Tropaeolum_, while in flowers that are usually didynamous
absence of two or more of the stamens is not unfrequent, _e.g._ in
_Antirrhinum_, _Digitalis_, while in a flower of _Catalpa_ a solitary
perfect stamen, and a complete absence of the sterile ones usually
present, have been observed. This might have been anticipated from the
frequent deficiencies in the staminal whorl in these plants under what
are considered to be normal conditions. Reduction of the staminal whorl
is also not unfrequent in _Trifolium repens_ and _T. hybridum_, and has
been seen in _Delphinium_, &c.[471]

=Meiophylly of the gynoecium.=--Numerical inequality in the case of
the pistil, as compared with the other whorls of the flower, is of such
common occurrence, under ordinary circumstances, that in some text-books
it is looked on as the normal condition, and a flower which is isomerous
in the outer whorls is by some writers not considered numerically
irregular if the number of the carpels does not coincide with that of
the other organs.

But in this place it is only necessary to allude to deviations from the
number of carpels that are ordinarily found in the particular species
under observation. As illustrations the following may be
cited:--_Arenaria tetraqueta_, which has normally three styles, and a
six-valved capsule, has been seen with two styles, and a four or
five-valved capsule. Moquin relates an instance in _Polygala vulgaris_
where there was but a single carpel, a condition analogous to