PROLIFICATION OF THE FLOWER. 133 



this form of prolification are, no doubt, those which 

 are met with among Primulacece and other orders with 

 free central placentation. 



Duchartre, in his memoir on the organogeny of 

 plants with a free central placenta, in the * Ann. des 

 Sc. Nat.,' 3 ser., 1844, p. 290, among other similar 

 instances, mentions two flowers of Cortusa Matthioli^ 

 wherein the placenta was ovuliferous at the base ; but 

 the upper portion, instead of simply elongating itself 

 into a sterile cone, had produced a little flower with 

 its parts slightly different from those of the normal 

 flowers. M. Alph. de CandoUe has likewise described 

 somewhat similar deviations, and one in particular in 

 Primula Auricula, where the elongated placenta gave 

 off long and dilated funiculi bearing ovules, while other 

 funiculi were destitute of these bodies, but were much 

 dilated and foHaceous in appearance.^ In some flowers 

 of Rhododendron I have observed a similar condition 

 of the ovules, which, moreover, in the primary flowers, 

 were attached to the walls of the carpels parietal 

 placentation. 



In speaking of these as cases of intra-carpellary 

 prohfication, it is, of course, impossible to overlook 

 the fact that they differ in degree only from those 

 cases where the lengthened axis projects beyond the 

 cavity of the carpels ; nevertheless they seem to 

 demand special notice, because in these particular plants 

 the placenta or its prolongation appears never to pro- 

 trude beyond the carpels, or at least very rarely. 

 There are, however, numerous instances of such an 

 extension of the placenta and of prolification occurring 

 among Primulacece in conjunction with the more or 

 less complete arrest of growth of the carpels.^ An 

 instance of this kind has come under my own notice 

 in a monstrosity of the Chinese primrose, in which 

 the carpels were reduced to a hardly discernible rim 



' A. de CandoUe, ' Neue Denkschriften,' op. cit., p. 9 ; also Ungfer as 

 citd in 'Botanical Gazette,* May, 1351, p. 70. 

 ' Duchartre, op. cit. 



