Recently while admiring an unusually large "spike" of the Yucca filamentosa and courting the acquaintance of the little dusty-millers which haunt and seem to operate these fairy flower-mills, I came across one of the less common forms of floral metamorphosis and of prolification, one type of which is where a pedunculate branch springs from the head of a flower, as on the rose for instance, where a branch rising from the centre of the flower is terminated by another rose a few inches above the first one. This variation, though less common, is by no means rare. They often occur in the greenhouse, while the more ordinary forms of transformation are of as common occurrence as single flowers.

Something more of a rarity is when the "condensed branch" attempts to develop the side buds, and produces flowers in the axils of its petals. This was the nature of the specimen we lately found on the Yucca. This flower consisted of a double calyx, both fully formed and pure white. A corolla with one additional petal, somewhat crumpled and revealing a stage of development midway between stamen and petal; the normal number of stamens, six, and an ovary with one of its three prominent carpels missing. What we call double calyx may have been double corolla, but there was the natural number of stamens present. The most prominent feature, however, was the development of a pair of good sized and perfect flower buds in the axils of two of the segments of the exterior calyx, and one at the base of the third sepal.

Thus was produced a kind of compound monstrosity, exemplifying several principles of morphology - multum in parvo. The flower was also remarkable in some other respects. In the augmentation of spirals in the flower this multiplication more commonly occurs among the androecium, and in this kind of prolification, which in itself is rare, such buds are more commonly found in the axil of stamen or petal.

Nevertheless such pine-knots all help to kindle bright fires and throw light in the darker recesses of nature's abode. They are not imperfections or blots upon the pages of nature, but punctuation marks to aid science in interpreting her wonderful manuscript.

New Albany, Ind., June 20th, 1886.