1909] Rehder,— The Fruit of Lonicera caerulea 211 
firmly to the base of the calyx and the neck of the ovaries by means 
of a dense matted villous tomentum with which the cupula and the 
top of the ovary is clothed, that even in thin sections they can only be 
separated by some force. Furthermore fully ripe fruits were not 
known at the time of the description of these species and the half ripe 
berries had the appearance of a perfectly closed rather dry fruit, while 
material recently received showed that in both species the cupula splits 
at maturity and discloses the red berries. 
Among the American Loniceras there is no other species which ap- 
proaches L. coerulea in the shape and behavior of the bractlets; the 
nearest is L. involucrata, but in this species the bractlets though very 
large and growing with the fruits do not form a real cupula, they are 
only slightly connate and subtend, but do not enclose the berries. 
Among the Old World species, however, all intermediate states can be 
found from species with four small completely separate bractlets to 
species with a perfect cupula tightly enclosing the ovaries. There is 
even a species, L. Griffithit Hook. f. & Thoms., belonging to the sub- 
genus Periclymenum in which all the bractlets of a whorl of six flowers 
are connate into one common cupula. 
A few words may be added here on the morphology of the inflo- 
rescence in the genus Lonicera. 'The inflorescence is a simple three- 
flowered cyme with the central flower suppressed in the subgenus 
Chamaecerasus, while in the subgenus Periclymenum (Caprifolium) 
all three flowers are developed and the flowers of the two opposite 
sessile cymes form here six-flowered whorls. Each flower has two 
prophylls. The prophylls of the central flower bearing in their axils 
the two lateral flowers are called bracts; they are always present, 
though in a few cases as in L. oblongifolia and L. conjugialis very 
minute and caducous; in shape they vary from subulate to foliaceous. 
The prophylls of the lateral flowers of which there are four in each 
суше, two for each flower, are designated as bractlets; they are 
generally roundish in outline and usually partly connate in various ways 
and different degrees, less often perfectly separate and sometimes 
entirely wanting or only recognizable as minute tubercles at the 
base of the ovaries. In most species of the subgenus Periclymenum 
and in a few other species the leaves subtending the cymes become 
bractlike, but must not be confused with the real bracts and bractlets. 
ARNOLD ARBORETUM. 
