f-buds, _i.e._ on the inflorescence. This
conjecture is borne out by the comparative rarity with which
prolification has been observed in flowers that are solitary in the
axils of the ordinary leaves of the plant. If the lists of genera
appended hereto be perused, it will be seen that nearly all the cases
occur in genera where the inflorescence is distinctly separated from the
other branches of the stem. In direct proportion, then, to the degree in
which one region of the axis or certain branches of a plant are devoted
to the formation of flower-buds to the exclusion of leaf-buds, is the
frequency with which those flowers become affected with floral
prolification.

Flowers produced upon indefinite inflorescences are liable to be
affected with either form of prolification more frequently than those
borne upon definite inflorescences. Prolification in both varieties is
also more frequently met with in branched inflorescences than in those
in which the flowers are sessile; but the degree of branching seems less
material, inasmuch as this malformation is more commonly recorded as
occurring in racemes than in the more branched panicles, &c. From the
similar arrest of growth in length, in the case of the flower, to that
which occurs in the stem in the case of definite inflorescence, it might
have been expected that axillary prolification would be more frequent in
plants having a cymose arrangement of their flowers than in those whose
inflorescence is indefinite; such, however, is not the case. The reason
for this may be sought for in the lengthening of the floral axis, so
common in prolified flowers--a condition the reverse of that which
happens in the case of definite inflorescence.

Median prolification occurs frequently in double flowers; the axillary
variety, on the other hand, is most common in flowers whose lateral
organs have assumed more or less of the condition of leaves. The other
coincident changes are alluded to elsewhere or do not present useful
points of comparison, and may therefore be passed over.

=Prolification of the inflorescence.=--This consists in the formation of
leaf-buds or of an undue number of flower-buds on the inflorescence. It
must be distinguished from virescence, or the mere green colour of the
floral organs, and from chloranthy, in which all or the greater portion
of the parts of the flower are replaced by leaves. Prolification is, in
fact, a formation of supernumerary buds, leafy or floral,