490 MR. M. T. MASTERS ON AXILLARY PROLIFICATION IN FLOWERS. 
two adventitious buds. It may be here stated that there are usually (always ?) two such 
buds, and two only, in this family. I have been disappointed in not having been able to 
discover anything in the cruciferous flowers I have examined that throws light upon 
the morphology of the hypogynous glands, so common in this family. Either these 
bodies have been unchanged in the prolified flowers, or they have been entirely absent. 
The order Caryophyllacece is very liable to these malformations. This has been before 
alluded to, in speaking of the elongation of the thalamus, and the displacement of the 
members of the floral whorl. 
Since the publication of my paper on median pr olification , I have been informed of the 
presence of that malformation in the flowers of a Geranium— & genus of an order in which 
such an occurrence was to have been expected, from the nature of the thalamus. 
Prolification among the TTmbelliferce is interesting, from the fact that frequently the 
calyx is completely detached from the pistil, and is separated into its constituent leaves ; 
at other times the structure of the calyx is less extensively interfered with. The pistil is 
frequently present in the guise of two disunited lance-shaped leaves. The most remarkable 
instance that has fallen under my notice is a specimen of Daitcus Carota, gathered by myself 
in Switzerland in July 1858 (PI. LIT. fig. 4). In this specimen the calyx was tubular, 
its limb divided into five small teeth. The carpels were leaf-like, disjoined, and unpro- 
vided with ovules ; between them rose a central prolongation of the axis, which almost 
immediately divided into two branches, each terminated by a small umbel of perfect 
flowers, surrounded by minute bracts. The petals and stamens were little changed ; but 
the calyx and the leafy carpels demand a more explicit description. The lower part of 
the carpellary leaves was inseparably united to the interior of the calyx-tube. This 
latter organ was traversed by ten ribs, apparently corresponding to the primary ridges 
of the normal fruit ; these ribs were destitute of spines, and the bristly secondary ridges 
were entirely absent. Those portions of the carpels which were detached from the calyx 
had each three ribs, a central and two lateral ones, which appeared to be continuous with 
the ribs of the calyx below, — although in the case of the calyx there were ten, in the case 
of the carpels six ribs, three to each. This diversity in number is thus explained :— A 
circle of vascular tissue ran round the interior of the calyx-tube, at its junction with the 
limb, and at the point of insertion of the petals and stamens. This vascular circle seemed 
to be formed from the confluence of the ten ribs from below. Of the five ribs in each 
hall' of the calyx, the three central ones were joined together just at the point of 
fluence with the vascular circle, above which they formed but a single rib — that ti 
the centre of the carpellary leaf ; the two lateral ribs of each half of the calyx seemed to 
be continuous, above the vascular rim, with the lateral ribs of the carpel ; these lateral 
ribs Avcre connected on either side with the central one by short branches of communica- 
tion. The disposition of the ten ribs may be thus represented 
111 111 
32323 32323 
11111 11111 
The lower line of figures represents the calycine ribs, the middle row shows how each oi 
these ribs is divided at the vascular rim 3 and the uppermost row shows their distribution 
