DETERMINATE INFLORESCENCE. 



219 



405. The Fascicle is a very compact cyme, witli upright or ap- 

 pressed branches ; as in the Sweet William. 



406. A Glomerulc is a cyme condensed into a kind of head. It is 

 to the cyme what the head is to the corymb or umbel. 



407. There are several abnormal modifications of definite inflo- 

 rescence, ai'ising from irregular development, or the suppression of 

 parts, such as the non-appearance sometimes of the central flower, 

 or often of one of the lateral branches at each division ; as in the 

 ultimate ramifications of Fig. 331, where one of the lateral pedicels 

 is wanting. When this deviation is completely manifested, that is, 

 when one of the side branches regularly fails, the cyme is apparently 

 converted into a kind of one-sided raceme, and the flowers seem to 

 expand from below upwai'ds, or centripetally. The diagram. Fig. 

 332, when compared with Fig. 331, explains this anomaly. The 

 place of the axillary branch which fails to develop at each ramifica- 

 tion is indicated by the dotted 

 lines. Cases like this occur 

 in several Hypericums, and 

 in some other opposite-leaved 

 plants. An analogous case oc- 

 curs in many alternate-leaved 

 plants ; where the stem, being 

 tei-minated by a flower, is con- 

 tinued by a branch from the 

 axil of the uppermost leaf or 

 bi'act ; this, bearing a flower, 

 is similarly prolonged by a secondary branch ; that by a third, and 

 so on ; as is shown in the diagram. Fig. 333. Such forms of inflo- 



V^ 



FIG 331. The open, progressively developed cyme of Alsine Michauxii. 

 FIG. 332, 333. Plan of two modifications of helicoid cymes or \^^c lacfmes. 



