378 THE NATURAL HISTORY REVIEW. 



are the very flowers tliat should have been more fully described and 

 more carefully drawn. As it is, we can only suppose them to have 

 been similar to many seen by ourselves in Umhelliferce, and noticed 

 in the text books of Teratology. For instance, it is not uncommon to 

 see stalked flower-buds proceeding from the rim of the calyx tube, with 

 the petals and stamens, or even projecting between and beyond the 

 two styles. So also we have often seen the calyx tube slit down on 

 one side, the carpels partially disjoined, and from the very base of 

 the open calyx proceeded stalked flower-buds, which originated clearly 

 from the axils of the sepals. Suppose the calyx in such a case not 

 slit down, but united as usual, then these adventitious buds would 

 appear projecting above the calyx-rim, with the stamens as above 

 mentioned. Any of these kinds of malformations would have, at 

 first sight, the appearance of being part flower, part umbel ; but 

 none of them would justify the statement that the supernumerary 

 buds were transformations of flowers, or of parts of flowers. Mr. 

 Spencer seems to have anticipated the objections that would be 

 raised to his explanation of these monstrosities, for he writes, 

 *' Where a cluster of flowers replaces a single flower, it is because 

 the axillary buds, which hypothetically belong to the several foliar 

 organs of the flower, become developed into axes ; and assuming 

 this, is basing an hypothesis on another hypothesis that is directly 

 at variance with facts." At variance with facts because these axil- 

 lary buds are almost universally absent from the cotyledons, from the 

 sepals, petals, stamens, &c. Thus " out of eight leading forms which 

 folia assume, one has the axillary bud, and seven are without it." 

 Now, the absence of the buds is not so general as is here said to be 

 the case ; it is perfectly true that the buds in many cases cease to 

 grow, so that in the fully developed plant they are hardly visible, 

 but let the conditions be altered, cut ofi", or injure the terminal bud, 

 and the result wiU be, if the plant live, the production of numerous 

 lateral buds from the axils of the leaves. In the case of the upper 

 leaves of the stem, those near the flower, or those constituting the 

 flower itself, it is quite true that, under ordinary circumstances, the 

 buds are not developed ; but what is this but the result of that anta- 

 gonism to which Mr. Spencer himself elsew^here alludes, between the 

 vegetative and the reproductive parts of the plant ? If the energies 

 of the plant are exerted in one direction, the growth in the opposite 

 direction is limited in proportion. But then, as if to prove the rule, 

 these buds are, under exceptional circumstances, developed from the 



