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XXXI. On Prolification in Flowers, and especially on that kind termed Axillary Pro- 

 lification. By Maxwell T, Masters, Esq., F.L.S., Lecturer on Botany at St. 

 George's Hospital. 



Read February 20th, 1862. 



In a paper which, is inserted in the last Part of the ' Transactions,' I had the honour of 

 laying before the Society the results of my inquiries into the subject of median prolifica- 

 tion. I propose now to treat especially of axillary prolification in flowers. My ma- 

 terials bave been derived from tbe same sources that are mentioned in my previous 

 paper ; and from them I have drawn up a list of genera in which this deviation from the 

 ordinary rule has been observed. The list is, I believe, comprehensive enough to afford 

 a sufficient basis for the opinions and remarks which follow, although I have no doubt 

 many additions might be made to it by a more thorough search through the periodical 

 botanical publications (especially those in the German language) than I have been enabled 

 to make. Anything like a statistical record, showing the frequency with which this form 

 of prolification has been observed in certain genera and species as compared with others, 

 would be very difficult, if not impossible, to draw up. The approximate estimates which 

 I have formed are, I believe, sufficiently correct for the purposes of this paper. 



Among the many points of interest presented by the subject, the following are par- 

 ticularly treated of in this memoir, — viz., the nature, number, and position of the adven- 

 titious buds, the genera in which the change is most frequently to be met with, and the 

 inferences to be derived therefrom, the changes that occur in the flowers so affected, 

 conjointly with the prolification, &c. There are also certain flowers whose construction 

 is such as to render them particularly interesting at all times, and yet more so when the 

 subjects of any deviation which illustrates their normal mode of formation ; these are, of 

 course, not overlooked in this paper. Other flowers, that have been erroneously said to 

 be the subjects of this malformation, also demand notice at our hands. A comparison of 

 the two forms of prolification, axillary and median, leads to such interesting results that 

 I have devoted some space to it. This affords me the opportunity of showing how the 

 morphology of certain of the large families of plants may be elucidated by cases of pro- 

 lification ; and at the same time it enables me to insert certain jiarticulars relating to 

 median prolification, which have presented themselves to me since the publication of my 

 paper on that subject. 



Axillary prolification is the term applied to those cases wherein one or more adventi- 

 tious buds spring from the axils of one or more of the parts of the flower. Engelmann 

 makes use of the word " ecblastesis " to denote the same condition. Both terms are 

 open to the objection that they do not clearly enable us to distinguish prolification 

 occurring within the flower from a similar state originating outside the flower, within 

 the bracts of the inflorescence. This latter condition, called by Moquin-Tandon lateral 



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