els of which, not unfrequently, the stem of the plant
projects, bearing on its sides bracts and rudimentary flowers. (See
Prolification.) An instance of this nature is figured in the 'Gardeners'
Chronicle,' 1850, p. 435, from which the cut (fig. 17) is borrowed.

[Illustration: FIG. 17.--Synanthy and other changes in a Foxglove.]

One of the most singular recorded instances of changes connected with
fusion of the flowers is that cited by Reinsch,[43] where two female
flowers of _Salix cinerea_ were so united with a male one as to produce
an hermaphrodite blossom.

It follows, from what has been said, that the number of parts that are
met with in these fused flowers varies according to the number of
blossoms and of the organs which have been suppressed. Comparatively
rarely do we find all the organs present; but when two flowers are
united together we find every possible variety between the number of
parts naturally belonging to the two flowers and that belonging to a
single one. Sometimes instances are met with wherein the calyx does not
present the normal number of parts, while the other parts of the flower
are in excess. I have seen in a _Calceolaria_ a single calyx, with the
ordinary number of sepals, enclosing two corollas, adherent simply by
their upper lips, and containing stamens and pistils in the usual way.
In this instance, then, the sepals of one flower must have been
suppressed, while no such suppression took place in the other parts of
the flower.

Professor Charles Morren paid special attention to the various methods
in which the flowers of Calceolarias may become fused, and to the
complications that ensue from the suppression of some parts, the
complete amalgamation of others, &c. Referring the reader to the Belgian
savant's papers for the full details of the changes observed, it is only
necessary to allude to a few of the most salient features.

[Illustration: FIG. 18.--Synanthic flowers of Calceolaria in which, with
two upper lips, there was but a single lower one.]

Sometimes the upper lips of two flowers are fused into one, the two
lower remaining distinct. In other cases, the upper lip disappears
altogether, while there are two lower lips placed opposite one another;,
of the stamens, sometimes the outermost, at other times the innermost
disappear.[44]

Occasionally there appears to be, as it were, a transference of the
parts of one flower to another. One of the simplest and most
intelligible