MR. M. T. MASTERS ON PROLIFICATION IN FLOWERS. 3C5 
flower the pistil is altogether absent, and a flower-bud occupies its place at the summit 
of a prolonged axis, quite detached from the calyx *. 
When a flower with the ovary naturally inferior or adherent to the calyx becomes pro- 
lifted, a change in the relative position of the calyx and ovary almost necessarily takes 
place, the latter becoming superior or detached from the calyx ; this has been already 
alluded to in JJmbellifercs. I have recently found an instance in a species of Campanula, 
where the calyx was free, the corolla double, the stamens with petaloid filaments, and in 
the place of the pistil there was a bud consisting of several series of green I tracts, 
arranged in threes and enclosing quite in the centre three carpellary leaves detached from 
one another and the other parts of the flower, and open along their margins, where the 
ovules were placed (sketch 6) f. A similar relative change in the position of the calyx 
and the ovary takes place when the Composite are affected with central proliiication, or 
even in that lesser degree of change w T hich merely consists in the separation and disunion 
of the parts of the flower, but which in these flowers appears to be, as it were, the first 
stage towards prolification. I owe to the kindness of Professor Oliver a sketch of a 
species of Ruclbeckia? showing this detachment of the calyx from the ovary. In a 
monstrous Fuchsia that I have had the opportunity of recently examining, the calyx 
was similarly detached from the ovary simultaneously with the extension of the axis. 
Here the petals were increased in number and variously modified, the stamens also; 
while in the centre and at the top of the flower, conjoined at the base with some imper- 
fect stamens, was a carpel open along its ovuliferous margins (sketch 7). It appears to 
me that such instances as these are really the first stages of a change which, carried 
out more perfectly, would result in the formation of a new bud on the extremity of the 
prolonged axis. 
Intra-carpellary Prolification.— 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 prolification is strictly intra-enr- 
pellary ; the axis is so slightly prolonged that it does not protrude beyond the carpels, 
does not separate 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 prolification occurs most frequently 
in plants having a free central placenta, though it is not confined to them, as it is recorded 
among Boraginece. A remarkable instance of this is described by Mr. II. C. "Watson in 
the first volume of the « Botanical Gazette,' p. 88. In this specimen a raceme of small 
* flowers was included within the enlarged pericarp of a species of Anchusa, But the most 
curious instances of this form of prolification are those which are met with among Pri- 
nmlacece and other orders with a free central placenta. 
Duchartre, in his memoir on the » Organogeny of Plants " with a free central placenta, 
* Reissek, Lintuea, vol. xvii. 1843. 
T OlllCe this nnnpr wnc rcaA T Jiairf» 
d (fig. 60; 
surmounted 
within the base of a tube formed by the union of the styles (fig. 6 
