AUGMENTATION, OR REGULAR MULTIPLICATION. 249 



that number. The Water-Lily, likewise, has all its parts increased 

 (Fig. 265), the floral envelopes and the stamens especially occu- 

 pying a great number of rows ; and the pistils are likewise numer- 

 ous ; although their number is disguised by a combination, to be 

 hereafter explained. When the sepals, petals, or other parts of 

 the flower are too numerous to be readily counted, or are even 

 more than twelve, especially when the number is inconstant, as it 

 commonly is in such cases, they are said to be indefinite ; and a 

 flower with numerous stamens is also termed polyandrous. 



452. When such multiplication of the floral circles is perfectly 

 regular, the number of the organs so increased is a multiple of 

 that which forms the basis of the flower ; but this could scarcely 

 be determined when the numbers are large, as in the stamens of a 

 Buttercup, for example, nor is there much constancy when the 

 whorls of any organ exceed three or four. In such cases, the cir- 

 cles usually appear to run into a continuous spiral, as is plainly 

 seen in the cone of a Magnolia or of a Tulip-tree. The doubling 

 or trebling of any or all the floral circles does not interfere with 

 the symmetry of the flower ; but it may obscure it (in the stamens 

 and pistils especially), by the crowding of two or more circles of 

 five members, for example, into what appears like one of ten, or 

 two trimerous circles into what appears like one of six. The lat- 

 ter case occurs in most Endogenous plants. 



453. The production of additional floral circles may account for 

 most cases of increase of the normal number of organs, but not 

 for all of them ; unless through the aid of hypotheses that have no 

 intrinsic probability, and are unsupported by any clear analogies 

 drawn from the organs of vegetation, which, it is evident, must 

 give the rule in all questions involving the morphology, or at least 

 the position, of the floral organs. It must, we think, be admitted 

 that certain parts of the blossom are sometimes multiplied by the 

 production of a pair or a group of organs which occupy the place 

 of one ; namely, by what has been termed 



454. Cliorisis or Deduplication, The name dedoublement of Du- 

 nal, which has been translated deduplication^ literally means un- 

 lining ; the original hypothesis being, that the organs in question 

 unline, or tend to separate into two or more layers, each having 

 the same structure. We may employ the word deduplication, in 

 the sense of the doubling or multiplication of the number of parts, 

 without receiving this hypothesis as to the nature of the process, 



