will not here recur to it.

[When flowers which have normally an irregular structure become regular or
peloric, the change is generally looked at by botanists as a return to the
primitive state. But Dr. Maxwell Masters (13/68. 'Natural Hist. Review' April
1863 page 258. See also his Lecture, Royal Institution, March 16, 1860. On
same subject see Moquin-Tandon 'Elements de Teratologie' 1841 pages 184, 352.
Dr. Peyritsch has collected a large number of very interesting cases 'Sitzb.
d. k. Akad. d. Wissensch.' Wien b. 60 and especially b. 66 1872 page 125.),
who has ably discussed this subject, remarks that when, for instance, all the
sepals of a Tropaeolum become green and of the same shape, instead of being
coloured with one 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
that the parent-form, for instance, of the genus Linaria had had all its
petals spurred; for a chance 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 (13/69. Verlot 'Des Varietes' 1865 page 89; Naudin 'Nouvelles Archives
du Museum' tome 1 page 137.), they probably stand in some close relation to
one another. On the doctrine that peloria is simply the result of an arrest of