536 MR. J. PARKIN ON THE 
the terminal flower, which blooms first, six to nine laterals are produced 
ending in flowers. The upper secondary axes are devoid of bracteoles ; the 
lower ones possess them and flower-buds in their axils as well, 
Papaver pilosum and P. spicatum have their flower-clusters still more 
defined and compact. 
Meconopsis, the next largest genus to Papaver, shows in its species a 
somewhat similar evolution of a fairly definite inflorescence from the solitary 
terminal flower, or from a condition once removed from this. 
ROSACEÆ. 
This large family is probably one of the more primitive or, at any rate, one 
showing primitive features, among the higher Polypetale. Well-defined 
inflorescences are not very common; and where dense ones occur, they 
‘an often be connected in the same or in an allied genus with simpler, more 
diffuse types of flower-clusters, and sometimes even traced back to the 
solitary terminal flower. 
In the first place, we may turn our attention to three nearly related genera, 
Kerria, Khodotypos, and Neviusia, which stand somewhat apart in the family 
and which probably are among the more primitive members. These genera 
are monotypic; two confined to the Chino-Japanese region and one to 
Atlantic North America, a not unusual discontinuous geographical dis- 
tribution for old and waning types, e.g., Liriodendron, Calycanthacem, 
Hydrastis. 
Kerra japonica.—The form with double flowers is commonly grown in 
our gardens, and my observations have been made on this. It has usually 
solitary terminal flowers. Sometimes these are situated at the ends of very 
long leafy shoots. As many as thirty foliage leaves have been counted on 
such a shoot terminated by a solitary flower. These long shoots arise from 
the base of the plant ; commencing in the spring, they continue to grow 
all the summer, and end their growth with a flower in the early autumn. 
Occasionally two or three lateral flowers appear alongside the terminal one ; 
these arise from the uppermost leaf axils and each pedicel bears two 
bracteoles. Thus a feeble attempt at an inflorescence. 
Besides this late summer or early autumn flowering, a much greater mass 
of bloom is produced in the late spring or early summer. These flowers 
appear in solitary fashion at the end of short leafy shoots which arise from 
the axils of the leaves (now fallen) on the long basal shoots produced the 
previous summer. The foliage leaves on these short lateral flower-bearing 
shoots number three to four, sometimes six to seven. The uppermost leaf is 
often much reduced in size, 
This plant would seem to be tending towards being a spring or early 
summer bloomer only. The production of solitary flowers at the ends of the 
