he flower of _Anchusa ochroleuca_, in which the
pistil consisted of two leaves, situated antero-posteriorly on a long
internode, with a small terminal flower-bud between them; and numerous
similar instances might be cited.

In this place may also be noticed those instances wherein the placenta
elongates so much that the pericarp becomes ruptured to allow of the
protrusion of the placenta, although this prolongation is not attended
by the formation of new buds. Cases of this kind occurring in
_Melastoma_ and _Solanum_ have been put on record by M. Alph. de
Candolle.[126] This is a change analogous with that which occurs in some
species of _Leontice_ or _Caulophyllum_, as commented on by Robert
Brown. See 'Miscellaneous Botanical Works' of this author, Ray Society,
vol. i, p. 359.

If the pistil be apocarpous, and the carpels arranged spirally on an
elevated thalamus, it then frequently happens that the carpels,
especially the upper ones, become carried up with the prolonged axis,
more widely separated one from the other than below, and particularly
liable to undergo various petalloid or foliaceous changes as in
proliferous _Roses_, _Potentilla_, &c.

[Illustration: FIG. 62.--Median floral prolification, &c., in flower of
_Delphinium_.]

Fig. 62, copied from Cramer, shows an instance of this kind in
_Delphinium elatum_, where not only is the thalamus prolonged, and the
carpels separated, but from the axils of some of the latter which have
assumed from the disunion of their margins somewhat of the appearance of
leaves, other flowering branches proceed--axillary prolification. If, on
the other hand, the carpels be few in number, and placed in a
verticillate manner, the axis then generally passes upwards without any
change in the form or position of the carpels being apparent, as in a
proliferous columbine, figured in the 'Linnean Transactions,' vol.
xxiii, tab. 34, fig. 5.

When a flower with the ovary naturally inferior or adherent to the calyx
becomes prolified, a change in the relative position of the calyx and
ovary almost necessarily takes place, the latter becoming superior or
detached from the calyx; this has been already alluded to in
_Umbelliferae_. In a species of _Campanula_ examined by me, the calyx was
free, the corolla double, the stamens with petaloid filaments, and in
the place of the pistil there was a bud consisting of several series of
green bracts, arranged in threes, and enclosing quite in the cen