[32 ALTERATION OF POSITION. 
ten or a dozen of these imperfect flowers may be 
seen on the end of a flower-stalk, giving an ap- 
pearance as if they were strung like beads, at 
regular intervals, on a common stalk. I have seen 
a similar instance in a less degree in a species of 
Helianthemum. 
‘he stamens are subject to various changes in pro- 
lified flowers ; they assume, for instance, a leaf-like or 
petal-like condition, or take on them more or less of a 
carpellary form, or they may be entirely absent; but 
none of these changes seem to be at all necessarily 
connected with the proliferous state of the flower. Of 
more interest is the alteration in the position of these 
organs which sometimes necessarily accrues from the 
elongation of the axis and the disjunction of the calyx; 
thus, in proliferous roses the stamens become strictly 
hypogynous, instead of remaining perigynous. In 
Umbellifere the epigynous condition is changed for the 
perigynous, &c. 
The condition of the pistillary organs in prolified 
flowers has already been alluded to. Hitherto those 
instances have heen considered in which either the 
carpels were absent, or the new bud proceeded from 
between the carpels. There is also an interesting 
class of cases where the prolification is strictly mtra- 
carpellary ; the axis is so shghtly prolonged that it 
does not protrude beyond the carpels, does not sepa- 
rate them in any way, but is wholly enclosed within 
their cavity. Doubtless, in many cases, this is merely 
a less perfect development of that change in which 
the axis protrudes beyond the carpels. This intra- 
carpellary prolification occurs most frequently in plants 
having a free central placenta, though it is not con- 
fined to them, as it is recorded among Boraginee. A 
remarkable instance of this is described by Mr. H. C. 
Watson in the first volume of Henfrey’s ‘ Botanical 
Gazette, p. 88. In this specimen a raceme of small 
flowers was included within the enlarged pericarp of a 
species of Anchusa. But the most curious instances of 
