43° BOTANICAL GAZETTE [ DECEMBER 
to which they belonged, or stems were adnate for some distance above 
the bract, so that the bract appeared to be below the node. 
Leaf organs are also frequently absent, but there is always a real or 
potential bud where the leaf or bract should have been had it been 
present. Several causes may act to bring about the absence of bracts, 
but crowding the parts in the bud seems to be the chief cause. The 
inflorescence of Sambucus Canadensis is very interesting in this connec- 
tion. At the primary division of the inflorescence the five rays are 
nearly equal, and the four lateral rays are each subtended by a bract 
which exhibits considerable variation in its position, being frequently 
above its normal position or below the apparent node. At the second- 
ary, tertiary, etc., divisions of the inflorescence, the parts of the whorl 
are very unequal, and the larger rays which come in contact with 
the enveloping leaf organs in the bud, and which thus bear most 
of the pressure, have the subtending bracts entirely obsolete, while the 
smaller inner rays from the same nodes, being in the center of the 
inflorescence, are subjected to less pressure and have minute bracts — 
present. 
Without an amendment to the law of bud arrangement a true 
anomaly occurs in the spikes of Verbascum Thapsus. In early devel- 
opment the spike does not appear complex, but in the older spikes or 
older portions of the spike each bract is seen to subtend a group of 
buds as shown in fig. 3. In the younger portions of the spike the 
upper bud (1) of the group is the only bud present, and is nestled 
close in the axil of the bract, hence it is a true axillary bud. This 
bud is removed from the axil by subsequent growth and another bud 
(2) takes its place, and is evidently just as truly an axillary bud as the 
first. About the time this second axillary bud appears, accessories 
(3, 3) appear at the base of the primary axillary bud, each being sub- 
tended by a bract, as is normal with accessory buds. Further growth 
also removes the secondary axillary bud from the axil of the bract, 
and a tertiary axillary bud (5) is developed in the axil, while accessories 
(4, 4) appear at the base of the second axillary bud. I have chosen to 
call these primary, secondary, and tertiary buds because they in nowisé 
‘differ from one another except in the time of their appearance. 
In a previous paper’ it was suggested that the bud which pecker 
an extra-axillary branch in the case of Juglans cinerea is really the true 
axillary bud, because no accessory bud was found which regularly pro™ 
' BOTANICAL GazettE, ar: 168. 1896. 
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