28 



PBINOIPLBS OP PLANT-TKEATOLOGY. 



the ovuliferous scale is the highly-modified equivalent 

 of a Gymnospermous flower. 



The production of leafy shoots in the axils of the 

 involucral bracts of the Compositse is not nearly so 

 common as that of secondary heads in that position ; 

 but it occurs sometimes in Bellis. Olos mentions the 

 formation of leafy shoots in place of the florets, or 

 some of them, in the wormwood 

 (Artemisia campestris) . 



Of shoots axillary to sepals 

 there was observed an enlarged 

 and more or less virescent flower 

 of a carnation which had seven 

 sepals from the axil of each of 

 which arose a shoot bearing a 

 dense aggregation of bract-like 

 foliar organs. 



A very frequent abnormality 

 in the pear is that of the forma- 

 tion of a longer or shorter shoot, 

 bearing a second pear at the end, 

 in the axil of a small leaf borne 

 on the surface of the ordinary 

 "fruit" (fig. 67). Now, this 

 small leaf is probably a sepal 

 whose base, unlike that of the 

 other sepals at the top of the 

 " fruit," has not become adnate 

 to the ovary along the whole 

 length of the latter ; such a shoot 

 must be adventitious in the axil between the sepal and 

 the ovary. On the view (not here supported) which 

 regards the pear -fruit as an axis, the position is more 

 natural, namely, that of an ordinary axillary shoot. 



In the very sti-iking phenomenon described and 

 figured by Knight, viz., that of the production of 

 potato-tubers in the axils of the sepals of Solatium, 

 the flower showed a central fruit with one or more 

 potatoes around it. 



Pig. 67. — Pyrus communis 

 (Pear). Shoot, bearing 

 a terminal pear, arising 

 in " axil " of a sepal 

 on the primary pear. 

 (Semi-diagrammatio.) 



