ut Mr. R.
Keeley, who sent me this plant, informs me that the flowers vary
greatly, having from four to six lobes to the corolla, and from three
to six stamens.[134] Now, as the members of the two great families to
which the Antirrhinum and Galeobdolon belong are properly pentamerous,
with some of the parts confluent and others suppressed, we ought not to
look at the sixth stamen and the sixth lobe to the corolla in either
case as due to reversion, any more than the additional petals in double
flowers in these same two families. But the case is different with the
fifth stamen in the peloric Antirrhinum, which {60} is produced by the
redevelopment of a rudiment always present, and which probably reveals
to us the state of the flower, as far as the stamens are concerned, at
some ancient epoch. It is also difficult to believe that the other four
stamens and the petals, after an arrest of development at a very early
embryonic age, would have come to full perfection in colour, structure,
and function, unless these organs had at some former period normally
passed through a similar course of growth. Hence it appears to me
probable that the progenitor of the genus Antirrhinum must at some
remote epoch have included five stamens and borne flowers in some
degree resembling those now produced by the peloric form.

Lastly, I may add that many instances have been recorded of flowers,
not generally ranked as peloric, in which certain organs, normally few
in number, have been abnormally augmented. As such an increase of parts
cannot be looked at as an arrest of development, nor as due to the
redevelopment of rudiments, for no rudiments are present, and as these
additional parts bring the plant into closer relationship with its
natural allies, they ought probably to be viewed as reversions to a
primordial condition.

These several facts show us in an interesting manner how intimately certain
abnormal states are connected together; namely, arrests of development
causing parts to become rudimentary or to be wholly suppressed,--the
redevelopment of parts at present in a more or less rudimentary
condition,--the reappearance of organs of which not a vestige can now be
detected,--and to these may be added, in the case of animals, the presence
during youth, and subsequent disappearance, of certain characters which
occasionally are retai