PROLIFICATION OF THE FLOWER. 145 



kind the detached sepal is placed below the others, 

 thus approximating, in position as well as in function, 

 to the bracts. In some of the instances of proliferous 

 pears, on which I shall have occasion 'to comment, the 

 sepals are described as sharing in the succulent cha- 

 racter of the fruit. 



The petals, under such circumstances, often exist 

 in the guise of sepals or of small leaves ; and instances 

 are recorded wherein the place of the calyx and corolla 

 was supplied by a succession of overlapping green 

 scales, from the axils of which the new buds arose. 

 M. Germain de Saint Pierre records such a case in 

 TrifoUum repens, wherein the calyx and corolla were 

 replaced by overlapping scales, in the axils of each one 

 of which arose a flower;, above there was a row of 

 stamens, and in the centre a pistil in the guise of a 

 trifoHate leaf.^ Such instances seem to afford an ex- 

 treme degree of a more common change, viz., the 

 diminished size and contracted appearance of the 

 sepals and petals when affected with axillary prolifica- 

 tion. They have also a close relationship to such 

 developments as we see in the wheat-ear carnation, 

 in certain species of the genus Mcbsh and others, 

 wherein the calyx is repeated over and again, to 

 the partial or complete suppression of the other 

 parts of the flower. All these cases may be in part 

 explained by the operation of the principle of compen- 

 sation. 



So far as the andraecium is concerned, the stamens 

 either remain unaltered, or they are present in a more 

 or less petal-like condition ; but it far more frequently 

 happens that the stamens are entirely suppressed, the 

 adventitious bud supplying their place ; thus was it in 

 the Dianthus represented in the adjoining woodcut, fig. 

 66f where the stamens were entirely absent, and their 

 places supplied by flower-bearing branches. This 

 Dianthus has the more interest from its similarity to 

 the one described by Goethe, Metam. der Pflanzen. 

 ' Bull. Soc. Bot. Pr.; torn, ui, 1856, p. 479. 



10 



