The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Volume II (of 2). Darwin Charles

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      When flowers which are properly irregular in structure become regular or peloric, the change is generally looked at by botanists as a return to the primitive state. But Dr. Maxwell Masters,131 who has ably discussed this subject, remarks that when, for instance, all the sepals of a Tropæolum become green and of the same shape, instead of being coloured with one alone prolonged into a spur, or when all the petals of a Linaria become simple and regular, such cases may be due merely to an arrest of development; for in these flowers all the organs during their earliest condition are symmetrical, and, if arrested at this stage of growth, they would not become irregular. If, moreover, the arrest were to take place at a still earlier period of development, the result would be a simple tuft of green leaves; and no one probably would call this a case of reversion. Dr. Masters designates the cases first alluded to as regular peloria; and others, in which all the corresponding parts assume a similar form of irregularity, as when all the petals in a Linaria become spurred, as irregular peloria. We have no right to attribute these latter cases to reversion, until it can be shown to be probable that the parent-form, for instance, of the genus Linaria had had all its petals spurred; for a change of this nature might result from the spreading of an anomalous structure, in accordance with the law, to be discussed in a future chapter, of homologous parts tending to vary in the same manner. But as both forms of peloria frequently occur on the same individual plant of the Linaria,132 they probably stand in some close relation to each other. On the doctrine that peloria is simply the result of an arrest of development, it is difficult to understand how an organ arrested at a very early period of growth should acquire its full functional perfection; – how a petal, supposed to be thus arrested, should acquire its brilliant colours, and serve as an envelope to the flower, or a stamen produce efficient pollen; yet this occurs with many peloric flowers. That pelorism is not due to mere chance variability, but either to an arrest of development or to reversion, we may infer from an observation made by Ch. Morren,133 namely, that families which have irregular flowers often "return by these monstrous growths to their regular form; whilst we never see a regular flower realise the structure of an irregular one."

      Some flowers have almost certainly become more or less completely peloric through reversion. Corydalis tuberosa properly has one of its two nectaries colourless, destitute of nectar, only half the size of the other, and therefore, to a certain extent, in a rudimentary state; the pistil is curved towards the perfect nectary, and the hood, formed of the inner petals, slips off the pistil and stamens in one direction alone, so that, when a bee sucks the perfect nectary, the stigma and stamens are exposed and rubbed against the insect's body. In several closely allied genera, as in Dielytra, &c., there are two perfect nectaries, the pistil is straight, and the hood slips off on either side, according as the bee sucks either nectary. Now, I have examined several flowers of Corydalis tuberosa, in which both nectaries were equally developed and contained nectar; in this we see only the redevelopment of a partially aborted organ; but with this redevelopment the pistil becomes straight, and the hood slips off in either direction; so that these flowers have acquired the perfect structure, so well adapted for insect agency, of Dielytra and its allies. We cannot attribute these coadapted modifications to chance, or to correlated variability; we must attribute them to reversion to a primordial condition of the species.

      The peloric flowers of Pelargonium have their five petals in all respects alike, and there is no nectary; so that they resemble the symmetrical flowers of the closely allied Geranium-genus; but the alternate stamens are also sometimes destitute of anthers, the shortened filaments being left as rudiments, and in this respect they resemble the symmetrical flowers of the closely allied genus, Erodium. Hence we are led to look at the peloric flowers of Pelargonium as having probably reverted to the state of some primordial form, the progenitor of the three closely related genera of Pelargonium, Geranium, and Erodium.

      In the peloric form of Antirrhinum majus, appropriately called the "Wonder," the tubular and elongated flowers СКАЧАТЬ