me of the stamens
are converted into petals having the shape of nectaries, one neatly
fitting into the other; but in one variety they are converted into
simple petals.[785] In the hose and hose primulae, the calyx becomes
brightly coloured and enlarged so as to resemble a corolla; and Mr. W.
Wooler informs me that this peculiarity is transmitted; for he crossed
a common polyanthus with one having a coloured calyx,[786] and some of
the seedlings inherited the coloured calyx during at least six
generations. In the "hen-and-chicken" daisy the main flower is
surrounded by a brood of small flowers developed from buds in the axils
of the scales of the involucre. A wonderful poppy has been described,
in which the stamens are converted into pistils; and so strictly was
this peculiarity inherited that, out of 154 seedlings, one alone
reverted to the ordinary and common type.[787] Of the cock's-comb
(_Celosia cristata_), which is an annual, there are several races in
which the flower-stem is wonderfully "fasciated" or compressed; and one
has been exhibited[788] actually eighteen inches in breadth. Peloric
races of _Gloxinia speciosa_ and _Antirrhinum majus_ can be propagated
by seed, and they differ in a wonderful manner from the typical form
both in structure and appearance.

A much more remarkable modification has been recorded by Sir William
and Dr. Hooker[789] in _Begonia frigida_. This plant properly produces
male and female flowers on the same fascicles; and in the female
flowers the perianth is superior; but a plant at Kew produced, besides
the ordinary flowers, others which graduated towards a perfect
hermaphrodite structure; and in these flowers the perianth was
inferior. To show the importance of this modification under a
classificatory point of view, I may quote what Prof. Harvey says,
namely, that had it "occurred in a state of nature, and had a botanist
collected a plant with such flowers, he would not only have {366}
placed it in a distinct genus from Begonia, but would probably have
considered it as the type of a new natural order." This modification
cannot in one sense be considered as a monstrosity, for analogous
structures naturally occur in other orders, as with Saxifragas and
Aristolochiaceae. The interest of the case is largely added to by Mr. C.
W. Crocker's observation t