359 
XIX. On Frolification in Flowers, and especially on that Form termed Median Frolification. 
By Maxwell T. ~M.ASTE%%Fsq., F.L.S., Lecturer on Botany at St. George's Hospital. 
Read January 17th, 1861. 
1 HE following paper contains some general remarks on the nature and varieties of that 
kind of malformation of the flower which Linnaeus and other botanists have termed Pro- 
lification, the plants peculiarly liable to it, their conformation and the inferences to be 
derived from them as to the nature of the deviation in question, the coincident changes 
in the various floral whorls, and other points of interest connected with the subject. The 
facts upon which the ensuing remarks are based have been derived from the standard 
treatises of Moquin-Tandon and Engelmann on Vegetable Teratology, and from a large 
number of descriptive notices scattered through such of the French and English scientific 
periodicals since 18-11, the date of publication of the ■ Elements de Teratologic ' of Moquin- 
Tandon, as I have been enabled to consult. In addition I owe to the kindness of friends 
many similar extracts from the German periodicals ; and lastly, I have had the oppor- 
tunity of personally examining a large number of cases of this malformation which have 
been supplied either by the kindness of my friends or by my own research. 
Unless some special reason should demand them, I shall not stay to give exact refer- 
ences to the very numerous papers and memoirs I have had occasion to consult ; many of 
them are duly cited in the two standard works already mentioned, while others will be 
referred to as circumstances may require. 
A special interest is attached to the subject in an historical point of view, inasmuch 
as both Linnaeus and Goethe availed themselves of it in the construction of their theories 
of morphology * . 
Eor the most part I shall avail myself of the classification of M. Moquin-Tandon, who 
speaks of prolification as median when an adventitious bud springs from the centre of the 
flower as a direct continuation of its growing point, as axillary when it springs from the 
axil of one of the parts of the flower, as lateral when the addition is rather to the inflo- 
rescence than to the flower itself. He speaks also of prolification of the fruit as well as 
of the flower ; but I think no advantage arises from separating this kind of prolification 
from that which occurs in the centre of the flower, for reasons that will hereafter be given. 
Eurthermore the adventitious growth may either be a flower-bud, a leaf-bud, or a com- 
pound bud f. . ,, 
Engelmann applies the term diaphysis to central prolification, and ecblastesw 
axillary form: these terms have the advantage of priority; but botanists - 
adopted the less pedantic nomenclature of the French author, and with good 
seem 
* Linn. ' Prolepsis Plant.' §§ vi. et vii. Goethe, 'Versuch iiber die Metamorpb.' cap. xv. & xvi. §§ 103-106. 
t Moquin-Tandon, ■ Elements de Teratologie,' 8vo. Paris, 1841, pp. 362-387. 
I Engelmann, « De Antholysi Prodromus,' 8vo. Frankfurt, 1832, §§ 52-61. 
^OL. XXIII. 
