THE SO-CALLED SCORPIOID CYME. 615 
If we now pass to genera of the Boraginec, we find they furnish us with inflorescences 
both bracteate (as Borago) and ebracteate (as Myosotis). Ifin the former a line be drawn 
the shortest way from, say, right bract to flower, left bract to flower, and so on continu- 
ously, it will be found that, commencing with No. 4, fig. 1 will exactly represent the 
positions of the bracts and flowers. 
Hence, as far as the order in the arrangement of the bracts and flowers are concerned, 
it is completely interpreted by the oscillating method. 
The reader will now perceive the significance of the examples I have taken; for, 
regarding the scorpioid cyme as monopodial and not sympodial, as it is usually considered, 
I derive it from opposite and decussate bracts, which have passed into alternate by the 
oscillating method (the foliage of the stem having adopted the spiral method). The 
preliminary stage of this is represented by Lathrea, though it is often uncertain in its 
method of alternation, and, moreover, retains a flower in the axil of every bract. Silene 
pendula only aids us in showing how one of two opposite bracts may have a strong 
tendency to be reduced in size when a flower-bud is produced above it. Indeed, as 
observed in the note above, not only is the bract reduced, but the bud in its axis is 
suppressed altogether. Combining these effects in Borago, we find the floral bracts 
completely gone, while the alternation by oscillation is thoroughly established. 
Other facts remain which demand interpretation. From the preceding explanation of 
Lathrea it would be inferred that the bracts should be in two vertical rows at first 
exactly opposite to the two rows of flowers, respectively ; and assuming, on the separation 
of opposite bracts, that the new internodes would grow to about the same length, then 
one of the bracts should be on a level, about halfway between any two flowers, and on 
the opposite side of the stem. Such is not quite the case. The bracts have undergone 
a further change in position; they have been “spirally uplifted,” so that instead of 
being lower down on the opposite side of the axis, each is uplifted to a position a little 
lower than that of the flower, but very near to it, as shown by the dotted lines in the 
figure of the floral axis of Hyoscyamus (fig. 4, bb). 
In using the expression “ spirally uplifted,” I only mean that the bract is, on the one 
hand, raised vertically a little above its theoretical position (or exactly halfway between 
the heights of any two flowers), and, on the other hand, shifted horizontally towards the 
nearest flower, these two motions, so to say, making together a slight spiral turn. 
This will account for their otherwise anomalous position close beside the flowers. 
Indeed, so close are they in some cases, that the latter might even. be supposed to spring 
from their axils. This is especially deceptive when the bracts are inserted by broad 
bases ; but the flowers are never immediately over the midribs of the bracts. 
That bracts can be uplifted, either by an elongation of the axis or by adhesion to it, is 
the other, namely that between the floral pedicel and its adjacent bract, being arrested; so that the whole forms a 
definite, sympodial, and racemose inflorescence with opposite and decussate bracts. De Candolle refers to this as 
explaining thescorpioid eyme ; but it will be seen hereafter that he, Payer, and other writers have confounded such 
sympo nodial “ racemes " and “spikes” (adopting such terms for what are really definite inflorescences) with what I 
now propose to call the (truly indefinite) scorpioid raceme. 
| SECOND SERIES.—BOTANY, VOL. I. 40 
