_Coniferae._--Richard, 'Mem. Conif.,' tab. xiii, f. 9. A. Braun, 'Das Individ.,' 1853, p. 65. De Cand., 'Organogr.,' tab. xxxvi. Wigand, 'Bot. Untersuch.,' 154. Schlechtendal, 'Bot. Zeit.,' 1859, p. 239. Caspary, 'De Abiet. flor. fem. struct. morphol.' Parlatore, 'Ann. Sc. Nat.,' 1862, vol. xvi, p. 215. Cramer, 'Bildungsabweich.,' p. 4, &c., &c. _Gramineae._--Bauhin, 'Pinax.,' 21. Morison, 'Hist. Plant.,' t. i. Winckler, 'Ephem. Nat. Cur.,' dec. i, ann. 7, 8, p. 151. Irmisch, 'Flora,' 1858, p. 40, &c. See also under Chloranthy, Viviparous plants, &c. =Prolification of the flower.=--In the preceding sections the formation of adventitious buds of a leafy or floral nature on the inflorescence has been considered. A similar production of buds may take place in the flower itself, either from its centre or from the axil of some of its constituent parts. Prolification of the flower is therefore median or axillary, and the adventitious bud itself may be of a leafy or a floral nature. =Median leafy prolification.=--In this malformation the centre of the flower is occupied by a bud or a branch; the growing point or termination of the axis which ordinarily ceases to grow after the formation of the carpels, takes on new growth. This is well shown in the accompanying illustration (fig. 58), representing the thalamus of a strawberry prolonged beyond the fruits into a small leaf-bearing branch. [Illustration: FIG. 58.--Receptacle of strawberry prolonged into a leafy branch. From the 'American Agriculturist.'] [Illustration: FIG. 59.--Flower of _Verbascum_ with five disunited sepals, five similar green petals, and a prolonged branch in the centre of the flower.] In other cases the carpels are entirely absent and their place is supplied by a leafy shoot as in a species of _Verbascum_, which came under my own observation. In this case the petals were virescent, and the stamens and pistils were entirely absent, hence in truth, the so-called flower more nearly resembled a branch. In a flower of a May Duke cherry, for which I am indebted to Mr. Salter, there was a gradual change from the floral to the foliar condition; thus there were five distinct lanceolate sepals, the arrangement of whose veins betokened that they were leaf-sheaths rather than perfect leaves, ten petals partly foliaceous and sheath-like as to their venation, one of them funnel-shaped, but whether from dilatation or cohesion of the margins could not be determined. The stamens were eight or ten in number, their connectives prolonged into foliaceous or petaloid appendages, so that the filament represented the stalk of the leaf. The pistil was entirely absent and its place was supplied by a branch with numerous perfectly formed stipulate leaves.