488 
MR. If. T. MASTERS ON AXILLARY PROLIFICATION IN FLOWERS. 
In the Dianthus (PL LIV. fig. 1), the adventitious growth occurred in the form. of 
circle of flower-stalks bearing alternate, strap-shaped, petal-like scales and one or 
one or two 
< - « 
imperfect flower-buds, which were made up externally of leafy or petal-like scales, within 
which was a gamosepalous calyx enclosing rudimentary petals, stamens, and carpels. In 
other cases, the outer scales were like carpellary leaves destitute of ovules, their margins 
widely separated one from the other, and their summits surmounted each by a style 
nearly as long as the leaf it self . 
A comparison of the two forms of prolification, axillary and median, leads to some 
interesting results, and enables me to mention a few circumstances that have occurred to 
me since my former paper, on median prolification, was published, or that were omitted 
or 
looked during its compilat 
Axillary prolification is a much less frequent 
malformation than the central form 
If 
ly the number of orders and g 
be 
reckoned, the truth of this statement will be scarcely recognized ; but if individual cases 
could be estimated, the difference in this respect between the two would be very much 
more obvious. This may perhaps be explained on the following grounds ; 
It is now almost universally admitted that the flower is homologous with the branch 
that, up to a certain time, the branch-bud or leaf-bud and the flower-bud do not 
tially differ*. At a later stage, the difference between the two is manifested, not only 
the altered form of the lateral organs in the flower-bud, but in the tendency to 
arrest of growth in the length of the central axial portion 
the functions and to a considerable extent the 
appear 
are assumed, and with them the tendency to g 
therefore, in this sense, is a further step in 
axillary form. To 
of the branch ; 
for the same re 
, Now, in prolified flowers, 
3e of a leaf-bud or of a branch 
length. Median prolification, 
is the 
etrograde metamorphosis than 
grow in length, and to produce axillary buds, are alike attributes 
but the former is much more frequently called into play than the latter ; 
ison, median prolification is more common than the axillary form. 
The frequency with which " apostasis," or the separation of the floral whorls one from 
another, to a greater degree than usual, is met with in prolified flowers has been before 
alluded to. 
* 
In both forms, the adventitious growth is much more frequently a flower-bud or an 
inflorescence than a leaf-bud or a branch. How this is to be accounted for I can only 
- 
conjecture. Perhaps it may be due to the position of the flowers on a portion of the 
stem of the plant especially devoted to the formation of flower-buds to the more or less 
complete exclusion of leaf-buds, i. e. the inflorescence 
This 
borne out by the com 
parati 
ty with which prolification has been observed in flowers that 
solitary 
the axils of the ordinary leaves of the plant. If the lists of genera be perused, it will 
be seen that nearly all the cases occur in genera where the inflorescence is distinctly 
separated from the other branches of the stem. In direct proportion, then, to the 
degree in which one region of the stem or branches of a plant is devoted to the for- 
mation of flower-buds to the exclusion of leaf -buds, is the frequency with which those 
flower-buds may become affected with floral prolification. 
* Linn. Prolepsis Plant. § vii. ; Goethe, op. cit. §§ 103-106. 
