Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 55.djvu/393

Rh But even here there are monstrosities in the true sense. The asparagus or sweet potato stem occasionally broadens out into a ribbon, and it passes as an abnormity. The same thing takes place in the flower cluster of cockscomb (Celosia cristata), and if it failed to produce a strange fan-shaped and highly colored and crested top the owner would complain that her seed had given her



only an inferior pigweed, and therefore not come true to name. The attractiveness of the cockscomb resides in the strange habit the plant has of broadening the upper end of the flower stalk out into a form that is truly monstrous. And this brings me to speak of a form that attracted my attention during the present season, samples of which are shown in Fig. 4.