THE INFLORESCENCE 



83 



40), others solitary. The sohtary flowers in Annona have bracts along 

 the peduncle, where abortive flowers may be present. Degeneria and 

 Eu-pomatia laurina also have bracts along the peduncle, and, in 

 Euponiatia, one of these may subtend a second flower. 



Whatever the flower position in the first angiosperms, it is apparent 

 that reduction in flower number and in inflorescence complexity has 

 taken place along many, often parallel and convergent, lines. This re- 

 duction is made evident by comparative study in many families and is 

 especially clear when found within generic limits, a common condi- 

 tion. If the solitary flower is primitive, there must have been extensive 

 building up to the paniculate inflorescences, followed frequently by 



Fig. 40. Sketch of Raimondea, Annonaceae, showing inflorescences of large flowers 

 in bud, extra-axillary. {After Safford.) 



reduction to simple clusters and solitary flowers, which represent a 

 highly specialized condition. Proof of a multiplication of flowers is dif- 

 ficult to obtain. It has been suggested that this multiplication occurred 

 as an accompaniment to the development of microflory, such as that 

 seen in several families in the Australian flora. But the abundance of 

 small flowers in these famifies is doubtless correlated with xerophily, 

 and the many flowers are not borne typically in inflorescences. 



Simplicity in flower position may represent either a primitive or an 

 advanced condition; it probably represents an advanced condition, the 

 result of reduction. The phylogenetic position of the simple inflorescence 

 is not clear; many of them obviously represent modified compound 

 types. If the large compound type is primitive, as it seems to be, no 

 inflorescence is fundamentally simple; all simple inflorescences are re- 

 duction types. The apparently simple "catkins" of the Amentiferae, the 



