pparently sometimes mistaken for prolification of
the fruit, is that in which the carpellary whorl becomes multiplied; so
that there is a second or even a third series within the outer whorl of
carpels. If the axis be at all prolonged, then these whorls are
separated one from the other, and produce in this way an appearance of
prolification. This happens frequently in oranges, as in the variety
called Mellarose.[132]

Moquin has given an explanation of the St. Valery Apples, wherein the
petals are sepaloid, the stamens absent, and where there is a double row
of carpels, by supposing these peculiarities to be due to "a
prolification combined with penetration and fusion of two or more
flowers," but it is surely more reasonable to conceive a second row of
carpels placed above the first by the prolongation of the central part
of the axis. Supposing this view to be correct, the inner calyx-like
whorl might be considered either as a repetition of the calycine whorl,
or it might be inferred that the corolla was present in the guise of a
second calyx.

Moquin-Tandon suggests another explanation--namely, that though the
stamens are absent in these curious flowers, at least in their ordinary
shape, they are represented by the lower row of carpels, which become,
in process of development, fused with the upper or true carpels. If this
were so, surely some intermediate conditions between stamen and carpel
would occasionally be present; but such does not appear to be the
case.[133]

In some of the instances of so-called proliferous pears the carpels
would seem to be entirely absent, and the dilated portion of the axis to
be alone repeated. Thus, the axis dilates to form the lower fruit
without any true carpels being produced, but at its summit a whorl of
leaves (sepals) is formed; above these another swelling of the axis
takes place also without the formation of carpels, and this, it may be,
is terminated in its turn by a branch producing leaves. In these cases
there is no true prolification, but simply an extension of the axis.
That the outer portion (so-called calyx-tube) of these fruits is really
an axile product there can now be little doubt; and, as if to show their
axile nature, they occasionally produce leaves from their sides, as
before mentioned. Moquin, in the tenth volume of the 'Bulletin of the
Botanical Society of France,' p. 73, says that when the case is one of
prolification the lower fruit is larger and is formed o