1903 Flowers and Inflorescences 243 



tulip, where one-half of a stamen is petaloid, and the other 

 half is rolled up still as one lobe of an anther, — the filament 

 of the stamen is really being flattened out and enlarged to 

 form a petal. Where plants are much cultivated and taken 

 care of for the sake of their flowers alone, where the pro- 

 pagation of the species is carried on by means of slips or 

 cuttings, the reproductive organs become unnecessary to the 

 plant, and are therefore dispensed with altogether in course of 

 time, and the purely ornamental portion of the flower takes 

 henceforth the most prominent place. Flowers which have 

 typically numerous stamens, such as roses or poppies, are 

 most inclined to become double. It is a retrograde condition, 

 a slipping back to the foliar origin of the floral organs. 



The inflorescence of a plant is a special branch upon 

 which flowers arc produced. There are many varieties 

 depending upon the style of branching and the relative 

 position of the flowers. 



Inflorescences have been divided into three classes — 

 the indefinite or racemose, the definite or cymose, and the 

 mixed inflorescences. 



In the first we have a branch of flowers, sessile or 

 stalked, borne on an elongated axis or stem, the lowest 

 flowers opening first, the youngest being towards the apex. 

 Sometimes the flowers, instead of being placed one above 

 another, are arranged side by side, and in such cases the 

 youngest flowers are in the centre. 



The two principal forms of indefinite inflorescence are 

 the spike, as that of the wayside plantain or the wheat, and 

 the raceme, as of the foxglove or snapdragon. These are 

 again divided into the varieties of the spike as follows : — 

 the catkin of the hazel, the strobile of the hop, the spadix 

 of the arum, and the cone of the Scotch fir ; whilst the 

 varieties of the raceme are the corymb of the hawthorn, the 

 panicle of the oat, the thyrsus of the lilac, the hypanthodium 

 of the fig, the capitulum of the daisy, the simple umbel of 

 the cowslip, and the compound umbel of the chervil. 



The definite inflorescence is one where the growth of 

 the axis is stopped by the production of a flower, and all 

 subsequent flowers are produced in the axil of the primary 

 stem and lateral branches. 



