OF THE BRACTS. 243 
is not attributable to arrest of development or retro- 
erade metamorphosis, but the reverse. The bracts of 
some species of Plantago' are very subject to this change. 
Thus, in the rose plantain of gardens, P. media (fig. 
126), the bracts are leafy and the axis depressed or 
not elongated, so that it is surmounted by a rosette of 
small leafy organs. <A similar condition of the bracts, 
unattended with arrest of growth in the axis, is common 
in P. major (fig. 127) and in P. lanceolata (see p. 108). 

Fic. 127.—Leaf-like bracts in Plantago major. 
It also occurs in the bracts of Corydalis solida, Amorpha 
fruticosa, Ajuga reptans, Parthenium inodorum, Cent- 
aurea Jacea, in the involucral bracts of the dandelion, the 
1 See Schlechtendal, ‘ Bot. Zeit.,’ vol. xv, 1857, p. 873; also Marchand, 
* Adansonia,’ iv, p. 156. 
