428 BOTANICAL GAZETTE | DECEMBER 
Physalis goes still farther in this form of disguise, and were one not 
familiar with a less disguised form, as Solanum nigrum, it would be 
very difficult to determine the normal arrangement of the parts. The 
internode, which in Solanum separates the inflorescence from the node 
below, fails to develop in Physalis, 
thus leaving a flower at a node to 
which it does not belong and hence 
neither axillary nor opposite to any 
leaf at that node. At the same 
time the leaf which properly cp- 
poses the inflorescence is carried 
upward, as in Solanum, to the 
level of the next node. If we 
conceive a node to be formed 
between the present nodes and 
the flower raised to it from the 
node below, and the leaf lowered 
: hone : a : to it from the node above, the 
cence and of the leaf belonging to the, HOGS Will all be perfectly normal 
same node. If the inflorescence of Solanum is 
split down to the node below, it 
will be seen to present precisely the arrangement of the Physalis node, 
and the irregularities may be very easily removed by cutting the flower 
from one node, and then the leaf to which that flower belongs from 
the node above, and so on. 
Dichotomy is another common peculiarity among the Solanacez. 
This is due to the equal development of the primary axis and an axil- 
lary branch, and its nature is often obscured by the leaf of the node 
below being carried, by adnation, to the point where the stem forks, 
while the leaf to which the lateral branch of the fork is axillary is car- 
ried up in a similar manner to the first node of that branch. 
The bract of Zilia Americana (fig. 2) shows how the removal of a 
bract from its normal position may serve a very useful purpose. This 
bract is primarily the homologue of a bud scale, or more ssusetiiie of a 
petiole ofa leaf. Its midrib is adnate to the peduncle for half the 
length of the bract, and being persistent with the fruit serves as an effi- 
cient means of seed dispersal. There has been some difference of 
opinion as to the homology of the bract of Tilia, but a careful exami- 
nation will suggest very forcibly that the bract is a case of adnation 
A portion of stem of Solanum 
