534 MR. J. PARKIN ON THE 
fifth secondary axis was the next to open. The expansion is then continued 
from this point somewhat acropetalously and basipetalously simultaneously. 
Before dismissing the family Ranunculaces, the genus Anemone calls for 
some remarks, | 
Anemone.—At first sight one might be inclined to consider this genus as 
affording examples of the primitive solitary terminal flower. Many species 
bear their flowers singly, but when this is the case the plant possesses the 
geophytie habit, and when the latter oceurs one has to be on one's guard, 
as geophytes have undergone in their evolution much compression in their 
vegetative features, and this may have taken place pari passu with a 
reduetion in the number of flowers composing the original inflorescence. 
This will be more likely to have happened in those instances in which the 
immediate ancestors of the geophytes had loose ill-defined flower-groupings. 
The genus Anemone appears to be a case in point. Then the involuere— 
a special feature of this genus—is most modified in the single flowered 
species, which would hardly be the case if such forms were primitive with 
respect to their solitary flowers. 
A species like A. japonica affords a convenient starting-point for the 
evolutionary study of the mode of flower-bearing in the genus. 
A. gaponica.—The foliage leaves proper are radical. The whole of the 
upright aerial shoot may be considered an inflorescence of a very lax 
ill-defined kind. The main axis terminates in a flower which is the first 
to bloom, and bears three leaves, little removed in character from the 
foliage leaves. ‘These foliar organs p ractically form a whorl and make, 
in fact, the involucre—a marked feature of the genus. It is easy, however, 
to see that the three leaves composing the involucre really proceed from the 
stem at different levels; in fact, there is little doubt that the involuere is 
formed by the suppression of two internodes, and that originally the leaves 
were borne in a scattered manner, as they are on the main axis of the 
inflorescence of Ranunculus. 
From the axil of each of these involucral leaves proceeds a secondary 
floral shoot similar to the main axis, except that it bears only two leaf- 
structures.  lrom these, tertiary shoots are produced of a like character, 
and the branching may be continued to some extent to even a higher degree. 
It is to be noted that the secondary floral shoots do not bloom simultaneously 
but in acropetalous order, and. their branching likewise develops similarly ; 
consequently the lowest secondary shoot produces most flowers or flower- 
buds in the season. 
Similar inflorescences occur in Anemone caroliniana, A. cylindrica, 
A. baldensis, and A. pennsylvanica, with this difference that the branching 
is not carried so far. 
In A. narcissiflora x number (five is very usual) of flowers proceed from 
the many-leaved involuere—the whole forming a false umbel—the so-called 
