[page] 127

Partial Change of Sex in Unisexual Flowers.—Will any of your botanical readers have the kindness to inform me, whether in those monoecious or dioecious plants, in which the flowers are widely different, it has ever been observed that half the flower, or only a segment of it, has been of one sex and the other half or segment of the opposite sex; in the same manner as so frequently occurs with insects? Charles Darwin.¹

[We have seen Willow flowers with one stamen, and one stalked carpel. There is also the case of Glochidion, in which three of the cells of a six-celled ovary were developed in the form of anthers. See Lindley, "Elements of Botany," p. 81. Similar changes have been met with in other Euphorbiaceae. EDS.]

¹ Monoecious plants have separate male and female flowers on the same plant, dioecious plants have either female or male flowers. See Correspondence vol. 14, pp. 51-2.