22
Autenrieth and Gasparrini both figure very interesting examples of stamens with the
connective prolonged upward as a style and stigma, or of a carpel reduced to the connective
of an anther (PLATE 5, figs. 18-20). The writer has not met with this phenomenon in
India.
Staminody of the pistil, such as is here described, is a well-known phenomenon. It is
recorded by Masters 1; parallel conditions to those described here have been noted by
Baillon as occurring in Ricinus, and have been pointed out to the writer by Professor Trail
as occurring in the white-flowered form of Passiflora coerulea. Except, however, for
Autenrieth's instance, which has been overlooked or misunderstood by subsequent writers,
the condition has not before been recorded in Cannabis.
Summary of Teratological Phenomena. —It has already been explained that
the citation of Cannabis as an instance of a plant sometimes showing solution of
calyx can only be continued in a very modified sense. On the other hand, how-
ever, Cannabis may now be added to the list of genera cited in teratological
works as exemplifying solution of carpels, and this whether the monocarpellary
or bicarpellary theory of ovarian structure be adopted (PLATE 5, figs. 3-6) ;
staminody of pistils (PLATE 5, figs. 9-13 and possibly fig. 3) ; phyllody of
carpels (PLATE 4, figs. 4-7, 9-16) ; and phyllody of ovule (PLATE 4, figs. 12,
15, 16).
Abnormal Embryos.— In Cannabis the seed, which has normally two coty-
ledons, is not infrequently found with three ; the posterior larger cotyledon is often
replaced by two.
The occurrence of a third cotyledon was first noticed by B. Clarke 2 ; since then it
has been recorded by Struve, 3 by Bode, 4 by Winkler 5 and by Macchiati. 6
The condition
is easily detected because normally the first two foliage leaves are opposite or very nearly
so ; not infrequently a seedling shows a whorl of three foliage leaves instead of a pair, and
when such a seedling is carefully examined the seed is found, in almost every case, to have
had three cotyledons. It is rare to find a considerable sowing with no instance of this ; the
largest number ever met with by the author at one time was seven 3-cotyledonary seeds
in a sample sowing of 100 seeds. It has, however, to be explained that the 100 seeds in
question were all shaken out of the same bundle of "round Gánjá ; " those who know how
Gánjá is prepared will realize that probably all these seeds were produced by one plant ;
possibly therefore the unusual number merely indicated a tendency inherited from a parent
plant in which it was strongly marked.
An instance is recorded in which the two cotyledons were of equal size, and another
in which they were connate ; these conditions, and that recorded by Bode where 4 coty-
ledons occurred, have not so far been met with in Indian hemp.
1 Vegetable Teratology, p. 301.
2 New Arrangement of Phanerogamous Plants; Introd., p. 4.
3 Struve. The writer has noted in his MSS. of 1894, that the observation was recorded by Curt Struve
in 1875, but he cannot now refer to the particular publication.
Pflanzenabnormitäten ( Sitzungsber. Bot. Verein. Brandenburg, 28th March 1879), p. 57. Bode
has also found four cotyledons in one seed.
5 Die Keimblätter der deutsch. Dicotyl. ( Verhand. Brandenb. xxv., p. 37 [1885]).
6 Sulla sessualita, etc., della Canapa, p. 10.