481 
XXXI. On Prolification in Flowers, and especially on that kind termed Axillary JPro- 
lification. By Maxwell T. Masters, Esq., F.L.S., Lecturer on Botany at St. 
George's Hospital. 
Read February 20th, 1862. 
IN a paper which is inserted in the last Part of the ' Transactions,' I had the honour of 
laying before the Society the results of my inquiries into the subject of median prolifica- 
tion. I propose now to treat especially of axillary prolification in flowers. My ma- 
terials have been derived from the same sources that are mentioned in my previous 
paper ; and from them I have drawn up a list of genera in which this deviation from the 
ordinary rule has been observed. The list is, I believe, comprehensive enough to afford 
a sufficient basis for the opinions and remarks which follow, although I have no doubt 
many additions might be made to it by a more thorough search through the periodical 
botanical publications (especially those in the German language) than I have been enabled 
to make. Anything like a statistical record, showing the frequency with which this form 
of prolification has been observed in certain genera and species as compared with others, 
would be very difficult, if not impossible, to draw up. The approximate estimates which 
I have formed are, I believe, sufficiently correct for the purposes of this paper. 
Among the many points of interest presented by the subject, the following are par- 
ticularly treated of in this memoir, — viz., the nature, number, and position of the adven- 
titious buds, the genera in which the change is most frequently to be met with, and the 
inferences to be derived therefrom, the changes that occur in the flowers so affected, 
conjointly with the prolification, &c. There are also certain flowers whose construction 
is such as to render them particularly interesting at all times, and yet more so when the 
subjects of any deviation which illustrates their normal mode of formation ; these are, of 
course, not overlooked in this paper. Other flowers, that have been erroneously said to 
be the subjects of this malformation, also demand notice at our hands. A comparison of 
the two forms of prolification, axillary and median, leads to such interesting results that 
I have devoted some space to it. This affords me the opportunity of showing how the 
morphology of certain of the large families of plants may be elucidated by cases of pro- 
lification ; and at the same time it enables me to insert certain particulars relating to 
median prolification, which have presented themselves to me since the publication of my 
paper on that subject. 
Axillary prolification is the term applied to those cases wherein one or more adventi- 
tious buds spring from the axils of one or more of the parts of the flower. Engelmann 
makes use of the word " ecblastesis " to denote the same condition. Both terms are 
open to the objection that they do not clearly enable us to distinguish prolification 
occurring within the flower from a similar state originating outside the flower, within 
the bracts of the inflorescence. This latter condition, called by Moquin-Tandon lateral 
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