dal, 'Bot. Zeit.,'
1859, p. 239. Caspary, 'De Abiet. flor. fem. struct. morphol.'
Parlatore, 'Ann. Sc. Nat.,' 1862, vol. xvi, p. 215. Cramer,
'Bildungsabweich.,' p. 4, &c., &c.

_Gramineae._--Bauhin, 'Pinax.,' 21. Morison, 'Hist. Plant.,' t.
i. Winckler, 'Ephem. Nat. Cur.,' dec. i, ann. 7, 8, p. 151.
Irmisch, 'Flora,' 1858, p. 40, &c.

See also under Chloranthy, Viviparous plants, &c.

=Prolification of the flower.=--In the preceding sections the formation
of adventitious buds of a leafy or floral nature on the inflorescence
has been considered. A similar production of buds may take place in the
flower itself, either from its centre or from the axil of some of its
constituent parts. Prolification of the flower is therefore median or
axillary, and the adventitious bud itself may be of a leafy or a floral
nature.

=Median leafy prolification.=--In this malformation the centre of the
flower is occupied by a bud or a branch; the growing point or
termination of the axis which ordinarily ceases to grow after the
formation of the carpels, takes on new growth. This is well shown in the
accompanying illustration (fig. 58), representing the thalamus of a
strawberry prolonged beyond the fruits into a small leaf-bearing branch.

[Illustration: FIG. 58.--Receptacle of strawberry prolonged into a leafy
branch. From the 'American Agriculturist.']

[Illustration: FIG. 59.--Flower of _Verbascum_ with five disunited
sepals, five similar green petals, and a prolonged branch in the centre
of the flower.]

In other cases the carpels are entirely absent and their place is
supplied by a leafy shoot as in a species of _Verbascum_, which came
under my own observation. In this case the petals were virescent, and
the stamens and pistils were entirely absent, hence in truth, the
so-called flower more nearly resembled a branch. In a flower of a May
Duke cherry, for which I am indebted to Mr. Salter, there was a gradual
change from the floral to the foliar condition; thus there were five
distinct lanceolate sepals, the arrangement of whose veins betokened
that they were leaf-sheaths rather than perfect leaves, ten petals
partly foliaceous and sheath-like as to their venation, one of them
funnel-shaped, but whether from dilatation or cohesion of the margins
could not be determined. The stamens were eight or ten in number, their
connectives prolonged into foliaceous or petaloid appendages, so that
the filame