102 ALTERATION OP POSITION. 



ordinary leaves of the plant. If the lists of genera 

 appended hereto be perused, it will be seen that nearly 

 all the cases occur in genera where the inflorescence is 

 distinctly separated from the other branches of the 

 stem. In direct proportion, then, to the degree in which 

 one region of the axis or certain branches of a plant are 

 devoted to the formation of flower-buds to the exclu- 

 sion of leaf-buds, is the frequency with which those 

 flowers become affected with floral prolification. 



Flowers produced upon indefinite inflorescences are 

 liable to be affected with either form of prolification 

 more frequently than those borne upon definite inflores- 

 cences. Prolification in both varieties is also more 

 frequently met with in branched inflorescences than in 

 those in which the flowers are sessile ; but the degree 

 of branching seems less material, inasmuch as this 

 malformation is more commonly recorded as occurring 

 in racemes than in the more branched panicles, &c. 

 From the similar arrest of growth in length, in the 

 case of the flower, to that which occurs in the stem 

 in the case of definite inflorescence, it might have 

 been expected that axillary prolification would be more 

 frequent in plants having a cymose arrangement of 

 their flowers than in those whose inflorescence is in- 

 definite ; such, however, is not the case. The reason 

 for this may be sought for in the lengthening of the 

 floral axis, so common in prolified flowers a condition 

 the reverse of that which happens in the case of definite 

 inflorescence. 



Median prolification occurs frequently in double 

 flowers ; the axillary variety, on the other hand, is most 

 common in flowers whose lateral organs have assumed 

 more or less of the condition of leaves. The other 

 coincident changes are alluded to elsewhere or do not 

 present useful points of comparison, and may therefore 

 be passed over, 



Prolification of the inflorescence. This consists in the for- 

 mation of 1(';ir-])ii(l,< ()! of Mil undue number of flower- 



