to me are far more
troublesome to dissect than animal tissue; they are so soft, and muddy
the water.

LETTER 660. TO MAXWELL MASTERS. Down, April 6th [1863].

I have been very glad to read your paper on Peloria. (660/1. "On the
Existence of Two Forms of Peloria." "Natural History Review," April,
1863, page 258.) For the mere chance of the following case being new
I send it. A plant which I purchased as Corydalis tuberosa has, as you
know, one nectary--short, white, and without nectar; the pistil is bowed
towards the true nectary; and the hood formed by the inner petals slips
off towards the opposite side (all adaptations to insect agency, like
many other pretty ones in this family). Now on my plants there are
several flowers (the fertility of which I will observe) with both
nectaries equal and purple and secreting nectar; the pistil is straight,
and the hood slips off either way. In short, these flowers have the
exact structure of Dielytra and Adlumia. Seeing this, I must look at
the case as one of reversion; though it is one of the spreading of
irregularity to two sides.

As columbine [Aquilegia] has all petals, etc., irregular, and as
monkshood [Aconitum] has two petals irregular, may not the case given by
Seringe, and referred to [by] you (660/2. "Seringe describes and figures
a flower [of Aconitum] wherein all the sepals were helmet-shaped," and
the petals similarly affected. Maxwell Masters, op. cit., page 260.),
by you be looked at as reversion to the columbine state? Would it be
too bold to suppose that some ancient Linaria, or allied form, and
some ancient Viola, had all petals spur-shaped, and that all cases of
"irregular peloria" in these genera are reversions to such imaginary
ancient form? (660/3. "'Regular or Congenital Peloria' would include
those flowers which, contrary to their usual habit, retain throughout
the whole of their growth their primordial regularity of form and
equality of proportion. 'Irregular or Acquired Peloria,' on the other
hand, would include those flowers in which the irregularity of growth
that ordinarily characterises some portions of the corolla is manifested
in all of them." Maxwell Masters, loc. cit.)

It seems to me, in my ignorance, that it would be advantageous to
consider the two forms of Peloria WHEN OCCURRING IN THE VERY SAME
SPECIES as probably due to the same general law--viz., one as reversion
to very early state, and the other as reversion to a later state when
a