Cardamine Pratensis.
65
D. Wheeler, to whose kind assistance about that time I
am much indebted for the knowledge I possess of plants
indigenous to this neighbourhood. That gentleman for-
warded a specimen to Professor Lindley, who expressed
much interest in it, and wrote a paragraph on the subject
in the Gardener's Chronicle. Plants of the same abnormal
character appeared more abundantly in the same place in
1860; and every year afterwards some might be found.
In 1863 Mr. A. Irvine noticed it in the Phytologist, having
received a specimen from me. In 1870 I sent a specimen
to Dr. Hooker, who, in acknowledging its receipt, said that
he had seen the same variety both in England and Scotland,
and that it was described in Dr. Masters' "Vegetable
Teratology." There is, however, some difference between
the plant described therein and the form I now notice, in
that my plant has a perfectly double flower contained
within the valves of the ovary as a calyx, showing a mul-
tiplication of petals, as in a double stock or wallflower, but
no stamens. The stamens of the original flower, out of
which the second one proceeds, commonly appear in due
order, but sometimes they are rather petaloid. Thus for
more than twenty years, and possibly much longer, has
this variety retained its abnormal character as faithfully
as if it were that of a species. The year before last I
transferred a plant of it to my garden, where it became
quite at home and flowered well last spring. In vegetative
growth it also showed that reproductive energy which is
often found in plants with double flowers incapable of
yielding seed. Not only did the flowering stem give
origin to branches which, being laid down on the ground,
became separate young plants, flowering last spring; but
in the autumn the larger leaves which lay upon the ground
sent out roots at the bases of their leaflets, while tiny
leaves arose above, so as to form young plants capable of
independent growth before the leaflets upon which they
grew had lost their living green colour. A plant which in
such a winter as we have just passed through could live
and increase thus may be regarded as very susceptible of
cultivation, for which its native beauty and the scientific