116 ALTERATION OF POSITION. 
either from its centre or from the axil of some of its con- 
stituent parts. Prolification of the flower is therefore 
median or axillary, and the adventitious bud itself may 
be of a leafy or a floral nature. 
Median leafy prolification—In this malformation the 
centre of the flower is occupied by a bud or a branch ; 
the growing point or termination of the axis which 
ordinarily ceases to grow after 
the formation of the carpels, 
takes on new growth. This is 
well shown in the accompanying 
illustration (fig. 58), represent- 
ing the thalamus of a strawberry 
prolonged beyond the fruits into 
a small leaf-bearing branch. 

Fig. 58.—Receptacle of straw- Fic. 59.—Flower of Verbascum 
berry prolonged into a leafy with five disunited sepals, five 
branch. From the ‘ American similar green petals, and a pro- 
Agriculturist.’ longed branch in the centre of 
the flower. 
In other cases the carpels are entirely absent and 
their place is supplied by a leafy shoot as in a species of 
Verbascum, which came under my own obseryation. 
In this case the petals were virescent, and the stamens 
and pistils were entirely absent, hence in truth, the so- 
