132 ALTERATION OF POSITION. 



ten or a dozea of these imperfect flowers may be 

 seen on tlie end of a flower-stalk, giving an ap- 

 pearance as if they were strung like beads, at 

 regular intervals, on a common stalk. I have seen 

 a similar instance in a less degree in a species of 

 Helianthermnu. 



The stamens are subject to various changes in pro- 

 lified flowers ; they assume, for instance, a leaf-like or 

 petal-like condition, or take on them more or less of a 

 carpellary form, or they may be entirely absent ; but 

 none of these changes seem to be at all necessarily 

 connected with the proliferous state of the flower. Of 

 more interest is the alteration in the position of these 

 organs which sometimes necessarily accrues from the 

 elongation of the axis and the disjunction of the calyx; 

 thus, in proHferous roses the stamens become strictly 

 hypogynous, instead of remaining perigynous. In 

 UmheUiferoj the epigynous condition is changed for the 

 perigynous, &c. 



The condition of the pistillary organs in prolified 

 flowers has already been alluded to. Hitherto those 

 instances have been considered in which either the 

 carpels were absent, or the new bud proceeded from 

 between the carpels. There is also an interesting 

 class of cases where the prohfication is strictly intra- 

 carpellary ; the axis is so slightly prolonged that it 

 does not protrude beyond the carpels, does not sepa- 

 rate them in any way, but is wholly enclosed within 

 their cavity. Doubtless, in many cases, this is merely 

 a less perfect development of that change in which 

 the axis protrudes beyond the carpels. This intra - 

 carpellary prohfication occurs most frequently in plants 

 having a free central placenta, though it is not con- 

 fined to them, as it is recorded among Boi'aginew. A 

 remarkable instance of this is described by Mr. H. C. 

 Watson in the first volume of Henfrey's ' Botanical 

 Gazette,' p. 88. In this specimen a raceme of small 

 flowers was included within the enlarged pericarp of a 

 species of Avrhtim. But the most cuinous instances of 



