102 ALTERATION OF POSITION. 
ordinary leaves of the plant. If the lists of genera 
appended hereto 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 axis or certain branches of a plant are 
devoted to the formation of flower-buds to the exclu- 
sion of leaf-buds, is the frequency with which those 
flowers become affected with floral prolification. 
Flowers produced upon indefinite inflorescences are 
hable to be affected with either form of prolification 
more frequently than those borne upon definite inflores- 
cences. Prolification in both varieties is also more 
frequently met with in branched inflorescences than in 
those in which the flowers are sessile; but the degree 
of branching seems less material, inasmuch as this 
malformation is more commonly recorded as occurring 
in racemes than in the more branched panicles, &e. 
From the similar arrest of growth in leneth, in the 
case of the flower, to that which occurs in the stem 
in the case of definite inflorescence, it might have 
been expected that axillary prolification would be more 
frequent in plants having a cymose arrangement of 
their flowers than in those whose inflorescence is in- 
definite ; such, however, is not the case. The reason 
for this may be sought for in the lengthening of the 
floral axis, so common in prolified flowers—a condition 
the reverse of that which happens in the case of definite 
inflorescence. 
Median prolification occurs frequently in double 
flowers; the axillary variety, on the other hand, 1s most 
common in flowers whose lateral organs have assumed 
more or less of the condition of leaves. The other 
coincident changes are alluded to elsewhere or do not 
isa useful points of comparison, and may therefore 
be passed over, 
Prolification of the inflorescence.—'l'lis consists in the for- 
mation of leaf-buds or of an undue number of flower- 
