THE INFLORESCENCE, AND THE FLOWER 259 



in the bulb below, an axillary bud matures during the season, which will 

 repeat the flowering axis in the next year, and so on. The tulip is then a 

 definite inflorescence, with an interval of a year between its flowers. Its 

 branch-system is sympodial, each succeeding axis overtopping its predecessor. 

 The Buttercup shows a similar condition, but its sympodial character appears 

 in the flowering shoots of the single season. (Fig. 179, A.) In these cases 



ft 



>» 



Fig. 180. 



Inflorescence of Centaury : a dichasium. 

 (After Figuier.) 



Fig. 181. 



Inflorescence of Verbena : a 



spike. (After Figuier.) 



the leaves are alternate, so that each lateral branch is solitary. But if the 

 leaves which serve as bracts in a cymose inflorescence are opposite, as they 

 commonly are in the Pink Family, and in many Gentians, the main axis will 

 bear two lateral branches at the same level. (Fig. 179. B.) The result is 

 what is called a Dichasium (Fig. 180). The difference depends here upon the 

 leaf-arrangement, but the method is the same as before ; and a number 

 of sympodia are the result, instead of only one. Various other Cymose in- 

 florescences are built up on fundamentally the same principle, but differing in 

 the orientation and succession of the bracts, and consequently of their 



