PROLIFERATION. 



29 



Small, apparently branched, buds have been ob- 

 served in the axils of the sepals of the sweet violet 

 (V. odorata). A flower of the Indian cress (Tropceolum 

 majus) was seen in the axil of a foliaceous sepal. 



Vegetative proliferation from the axils of the other 

 organs seems to be rare. 



As an instance of the kind in relation to carpels, a 

 strawberry (Fragaria vesca) had a leafy shoot bearing 

 a flower at its apex, arising from the axil of one of the 

 tiny achenes (representing a single carpel) seated on 

 the fleshy receptacle. 



Masters suggests that the terminal leafy shoot 

 sprouting from the virescent flower of Trifolium repens, 

 often ensheathed as it is by the virescent carpel at the 

 base, may, in reality, perhaps represent a shoot axillary 

 to this single terminal carpel. It seems, however, more 

 likely that the proliferating axis of the flower has 

 displaced the normally terminal carpel into a lateral 

 position. From the very fact that it is solitary the 

 carpel inevitably comes to occupy a terminal position, 

 and Payer, in his work on floral development, describes 

 it as arising "in the middle of the receptacle." This 

 being so, it is impossible for a shoot to arise in its axil. 

 Therefore this interpretation of the phenomenon cannot 

 be accepted. 



CONCLU sions on Proliferation. — Having now given 

 illustrations of the principal types of " proliferation " 

 or " prolification " which occur amongst plants, it 

 remains to consider the meaning of the phenomenon. 

 There is little doubt that, like the majority of other 

 abnormal phenomena, that which we call proliferation 

 is the expression of the tendency, under, as a rule, 

 certain unfavourable conditions of climate, nourishment, 

 or the influence of parasitism, to revert to a primitive 

 or ancestral habit or structure. In modern days, under 

 the influence of a more extended acquaintance with the 

 facts of comparative morphology and of fossil botany, 

 many have been led to perceive what an enormous role 



