XXIV FIRST PRINCIPLES 



mark than by their position, and by their usually surrounding more flowers than 

 one. 



235. The minute or colourless bractea? at the base of the florets of a capitulum 

 (261) are called palece. 



236. Small imbricated bractea? are often called scales. 



237. Bractea?, when placed immediately below the stamina and pistils, as in apeta- 

 lous flowers, are only distinguished from the calyx by being alternate with each other, 

 and not verticillate ; hence the glumes and palea of grasses are bractea? and not calyx. 



238. The axis of the flower-bud in its natural state does not elongate beyond 

 those upper series of metamorphosed leaves which constitute the stamina and pistils. 



239. The elongation of its axis, from the point of its connexion with the stem, 

 as far as the floral envelopes, is called the peduncle. 



240. When the several peduncles spring from the axis at short distances from 

 each other, the axis receives the name of rachis, and the peduncles themselves are 

 called pedicels. 



241. There is never more than one flower to each peduncle, strictly speaking ; 

 therefore, when we speak of a two-flowered peduncle, we only mean that two flow- 

 ers, each having its peculiar pedicel, terminate the axis, which is then considered 

 a peduncle common to each pedicel. 



242. Every flower, with its peduncle and bractcola?, being the developomcnt of a 

 flower-bud, and flower-buds being altogether analogous to leaf-buds, it follows, as a 

 coroliary, that every flower, with its peduncle and bracteola?, is a metamorphosed 

 branch. 



243. And further, the flowers being abortive branches, whatever the laws arc of 

 the arrangement of branches with respect to each other, the same will be the laws 

 of the arrangement of flowers with respect to each other. 



244. The flower-buds, however, being much less subject to abortion than leaf- 

 buds, flowers are more symmetrically disposed than branches, and appear to possess 

 their own peculiar order of developement. 



245. As flower-buds can only develope from the axilla of a bractea, it follows, 

 that while a pedicel without bractea? can never accidentally produce other flowers, 

 any one-flowered pedicel, on which bractea? are present, can, and frequently does, 

 bear several flowers. 



246. In consequence of a flower and its peduncle being a branch in a particular 

 state, the rudimentary or metamorphosed leaves which constitute bractea), floral 

 envelopes, stamina and pistils, are subject to exactly the same laws of arrangement 

 as regularly formed leaves. 



247. The modes in which the flower-buds arc arranged are called forms of in- 

 florescence : and the order in which they unfold is called the order of expansion. 



X. INFLORESCENCE. 



248. Inflorescence is the ramification of that part of the plant intended for repro- 

 duction by seed. 



249. The greater developement of some forms of inflorescence than of others, is 

 owinw to the greater power one plant posseses than another of developing buds, 

 latent in the axilla? of the bractea 1 . 



250. A flower-bud may either develope into a (single flower, or may follow t lie 

 laws of increase of leaf-buds, and give birth to many other flower-buds. 



251. In consequence of flower-buds obeying the laws which regulate leaf-buds, 

 all forms of inflorescence most of necessity, be axillary. 



252. Those forms which are called opposite the leaves, extra-axillary, petiolar, 

 or epiphyllous, and even the terminal itself, are mere modifications of the axil- 

 lary. 



253. The kinds of inflorescence which botanists more particularly distinguish 

 are the following : 



254. When no elongation of the general axis of a plant takes place beyond the 

 developement of a flower-bud, the flower becomes what is called terminal ami 



tar I) ; Ex. Paxmy. 



255. When a single fiower-ln i<1 unfolds in t In- axilla of a leal', and the general axis 

 continues to elongate, and the leaf undergoes no sensible diminution of size, the 

 flower which is developed is said to be solitary undaxillary. 



256. If all the buds of a newly formed elongated branch develope as flower-buds, 

 and at the same time produce peduncles, a raceme i& formed. 



