3. Calyx-teeth lance-shaped, acuminate; corolla more or less regular, arrested in its development and scarcely exceeding the tube of the calyx within which it is crumpled up; stamens but little changed; carpellary leaf on a short stalk, not exceeding the calyx tube, but the ovarian portion very long, and provided with abortive ovules.
These three groups will be found to include most of the forms under which frondescence of the clover blossoms occurs, but there are, of course, intermediate forms not readily to be grouped under either of the above heads. Such are the cases brought under the notice of the British Association at Birmingham in 1849 by Mr. R. Austen, in some of which the petals and stamens even were represented by leaves.
Although, on the whole, chloranthy is most frequent in the families already alluded to, yet it is by no means confined to them, as the examples now to be given amply show. Specimens of _Nymphæa Lotus_ have been seen in which all the parts of the flower, even to the stigmas, were leafy, while the ovules were entirely wanting.
Planchon[288] figures and describes a flower of _Drosera intermedia_ that had passed into a chloranthic condition, excepting the calyx, which was unchanged; the petals, like the valves of the ovary, were provided with stipules, and were circinate in vernation.
M. A. Viaud-Grand-Marais[289] records an interesting example of chloranthy, in which the sepals, petals, pistils, and ovules of _Anagallis arvensis_ were all foliaceous. Similar changes have not unfrequently been met with in _Dictamnus Fraxinella_.
M. Germain de Saint Pierre has also recorded the following deviations in the flowers of _Rumex arifolius_ and _R. scutatus_; in these specimens the calyx was normal, the petals large, foliaceous, shaped like the stem-leaves, the stamens were absent, the three carpels fused into a triangular leafy pod, as long again as the perianth, the stigmas normal or wanting, the ovule represented by a thick funicle, terminated by a foliaceous appendage analogous to the primine.[290]
In grasses it frequently happens that the flowers are replaced by leaf-buds; this condition is alluded to elsewhere under the head of viviparous grasses, but in this place may be mentioned a less degree of change, and which seems to have been a genuine case of chloranthy in _Glyceria fluitans_, the spikelet of which, as observed by Wigand,[291] consisted below of the ordinary unchanged glumes, but the remaining paleæ as well as the lodicles and stamens were represented by ligulate leaves. The plant, it is stated, was affected by a parasitic fungus. On the other hand, General Munro, in his valuable monograph of the _Bambusaceæ_,[292] refers to an illustration in which "the lowest glumes generally, and the lowest paleæ occasionally, had the appearance of miniature leaves, with vaginæ, ligules and cilia, enveloping, however, perfect fertile spiculæ; as progress is made towards the top of the spike, the ligule first, then the cilia, and finally, the leaf-like extension disappears, and the uppermost glumes assume the ordinary shape and form of those organs."