PROLIFICATION. OF THE FLOWER. 133 
this form of prolification are, no doubt, those which 
are met with among Primulacee and other orders with 
free central placentation. 
Duchartre, in his memoir on the organogeny of 
plants with a free central placenta, in the ‘ Ann. des 
Se. Nat.,’ 3 sér., 1844, p. 290, among other similar 
instances, mentions two flowers of Cortusa Matthioli, 
wherein the placenta was ovuliferous at the base; but 
the upper portion, instead of simply elongating itself 
into a sterile cone, had produced a little flower with 
its parts slightly different from those of the normal 
flowers. M. Alph. de Candolle has likewise described 
somewhat similar deviations, and one in particular in 
Primula Auricula, where the elongated placenta gave 
off long and dilated funiculi bearing ovules, while other 
funiculi were destitute of these bodies, but were much 
dilated and foliaceous in appearance.’ In some flowers 
of Rhododendron I have observed a similar condition 
of the ovules, which, moreover, in the primary flowers, 
were attached te the walls of the carpels—parietal 
placentation. 
In speaking of these as cases of intra-carpellary 
prolification, it is, of course, impossible to overlook 
the fact that they differ in degree only from those 
cases where the lengthened axis projects beyond the 
cavity of the carpels; nevertheless they seem to 
demand special notice, because in these particular plants 
the placenta or its prolongation appears never to pro- 
trude beyond the carpels, or at least very rarely. 
There are, however, numerous instances of such an 
extension of the placenta and of prolification occurring 
among Primulacee im conjunction with the more or 
less complete arrest of growth of the carpels.” An 
instance of this kind has come under my own notice 
in a monstrosity of the chinese primrose, in which 
the carpels were reduced to a hardly discernible rim 
' A. de Candolle, ‘Nene Denkschriften,’ op. cit., p. 9; also Unger as 
cited in ‘ Botanical Gazette,’ May, 1351, p. 70. 
* Duchartre, op. cit. 
