58 PROCEEDINGS OF THE ACADEMY OF [1889. 



elevations. At this dreary winter (January) season, the following 

 few companions could only be noted : 



Quercus coccinea, Q. Prinus monticola, Q. tinctoria, Juglans nigra, 

 Carya tomentosa, Castanea Americana, Betula lenta, Acer rubrum 

 Ostrya Virginica, Rubus Canadensis, Rosa humilis, Juniperus Vir- 

 giniana, Corydalis flavula, a wholly spineless Crataegus making a 

 dense bush six feet high, Danthonia spicata, Pyenanthemum muticum, 

 and numerous introduced plants that we expect to find everywhere. 



On Corydalis flavula D. C. In January, in Pine woods near 

 Lewistown, I noted some Corydalis, growing abundantly under 

 Pinus rigida, and Pinus Strobus, plants of which I brought home 

 potted, and kept in a cool greenhouse. By the end of Feb- 

 ruary they were in flower, and proved to be Corydalis flavula, D. C.,. 

 Fumaria flavula, Rafinesque. Being able to watch their growth 

 from day to day, I found a few points seemingly worth recording. 



It is customary to say of this and allied species that the " racemes 

 are opposite the leaves, or supra-axillary" (Torrey & Gray, p. 691) 

 as describing that which is apparent. This is fair, but it is decep- 

 tive as to the actual fact. A raceme is but a branch arrested in its 

 full axial development, and it is doubtful whether an axial 

 growth, no matter what form of inflorescence it may assume, ever 

 appears except from the axis of a leaf, or from the axis of the point 

 where a leaf ought to be. To my mind it is a question as to whether 

 every flower — each flower being regarded, morphologically, as an 

 arrested branch — must not of necessity be terminal as regards its 

 immediate axis ; and whatever lateral direction it may subsequently 

 assume, comes from a renewal of growth near or within the same 

 axial line, the more or less horizontal positions assumed resulting by 

 a pushing over, when the new axial growth is resumed. 



That this is the case in this Corydalis is evident. The 1 raceme i& 

 at first a terminal spike. At its base is a leaf with an axillary bud. 

 This bud, as it grow T s to a shoot, displaces the spike, assumes the 

 central position, and the spike then becomes a " supra-axillary ra- 

 ceme," with the newly made axis, between it and the leaf to which 

 it is axillary. 



1 Since this paper was prepared for publication the author notes that the raceme,, 

 so called, continues its growth to a number of nodes after the last flower has bten 

 produced, though the leaves at each node are still bractiform. Only for the fact 

 that the leaves on the axis are reduced to mere bracts, it would be nearly as proper 

 to say that the flowers are "axillary and solitary along the branches,'' as to say 

 they are racemose. 



