as the case
may be, these buds being sessile or stalked, the ordinary buds being not
necessarily changed. Prolification of the inflorescence, like the other
varieties, admits of subdivision, not only according to the foliar or
floral nature of the bud, but according to its position, terminal or
median and lateral.

Terminal prolification of the inflorescence, whether leafy or floral, is
hardly to be looked upon in the light of a malformation[105] seeing that
a similar condition is so commonly met with normally, as in _Epacris_,
_Metrosideros_, _Bromelia_, _Eucomis_, &c., wherein the leafy axis
projects beyond the inflorescence proper; or as in _Primula imperialis_,
in which plant, as also in luxuriant forms of _P. sinensis_, tier after
tier of flowers are placed in succession above the primary umbel.
Nevertheless, when we meet with such conditions in plants which, under
ordinary circumstances, do not manifest them, we must consider them as
coming under the domain of teratology.

=Median foliar prolification of the inflorescence= is frequently met
with in _Coniferae_, and has of late attracted unwonted attention from
the researches of Caspary, Baillon, and others, on the morphology of
these plants. The scales and bracts of the cone in these abnormal
specimens frequently afford transitional forms of the greatest value in
enabling morphologists to comprehend the real nature of the floral
structure. It would be irrelevant here to enter into this subject;
suffice it merely to say that an examination of very numerous specimens
of this kind, in the common larch and in _Cryptomeria Japonica_, has
enabled me to verify nearly the whole of Caspary's observations. A
similar prolongation of the axis occurred in some of the male catkins of
_Castanea vesca_, each of which had a tuft of small leaves at their
extremity. In the common marigold and in _Lotus corniculatus_ I have
also seen instances of this kind. Kirschleger[106] describes a tuft of
leaves as occurring on the apex of the flowering spike after the
maturation of the fruit in _Plantago_, and a similar growth frequently
takes place in the common wallflower, in _Antirrhinum majus_, &c. In
cases where a renewal of growth in the axis of inflorescence has taken
place after the ripening of the fruit, the French botanists use the term
recrudescence, but the growth in question by no means always occurs
after the ripening of the fruit, but frequently before. Professor Braun
cites t