Lindley[285] figures a very interesting illustration in _Potentilla nepalensis_, in which some of the flowers have their component parts leafy, in others the receptacle lengthens, till in extreme cases the whole of the floral apparatus is represented by a branch bearing a rosette of leaves.
A particular variety of the Alpine strawberry is also described as occasionally subject to this transformation. In these flowers the calyx remains normal, while all the other parts of the flower, even to the coating of the ovule, assume a leaf-like condition.[286]
Among _Leguminosæ_ a partial leafy condition (frondescence), or a more complete degree of the same change, (chloranthy) is not infrequent, particularly in _Trifolium repens_. In this species the changes are so common, so various and important, that they may be alluded to in some little detail. M. Germain de Saint Pierre,[287] in commenting on the frequency with which the flowers of this plant are more or less frondescent, remarks that although all the flowers on one plant may be affected, they are all changed in the same manner, but on different specimens different degrees of transformation are found. In all the corolla and stamens are comparatively little removed from the ordinary form, the calyx and pistil, however, have a particular tendency to assume a foliar condition. The author just cited arranges the malformations of this plant under three heads, as follows:
1. Calyx-teeth larger than usual, sometimes dentate at the margin; petals more or less regular and disposed to run away from the papilionaceous form; filaments free; anthers normal; carpel transformed into a true leaf with a long stalk provided at the base, with two stipules, terminal leaflet, solitary, green, with no trace of ovules. Sometimes a second carpellary leaf, similar to the first, is formed; in other cases the central axis of the flower is occasionally prolonged into a head of young flowers--median prolification. In some few instances the calyx is not at all altered, but the carpellary leaf is trifoliolate, or even quinquefoliolate, the corolla being then absent. The heads of flowers in this first form have the aspect of little tufts of leaves.
2. Each of the teeth of the calyx is represented by a long stalk, terminated by a single articulated leaflet, the bi-labiate form of the calyx is still recognisable; the two upper petals are united, the three lower separate; the tube of the calyx is not deformed and seems to be formed of the petioles of the sepals united by their stipules. In this second class of cases the corolla is papilionaceous, the filaments free, the carpellary leaf on a long stalk provided with stipules, its blade more or less like the usual carpel, with its margins disunited or more commonly united with the ovules in the interior, sometimes represented by a foliaceous, dentate primine only. In one case the carpel was closed above, gaping below, where it gave origin to several leaflets, the lower ones oval, dentate, like ordinary leaflets, the upper ones merely lanceolate, leafy lobes, representing the primine reduced to a foliaceous condition. Inflorescence--a head with leafy flowers on long stalks, which are longer at the circumference than in the centre.