36 OUTLINE OF STRUCTURAL BOTANY 
in groups which may be simple or quite complicated. We speak 
of such a group as the inflorescence. 
In the inflorescence of many plants there are found members 
which do not answer exactly to leaves and are not properly a part 
of the flower, they are bracts, often found at the base of the im- 
mediate flower stem or at the base of the flower itself. We have 
an example of the first in the fringy collar below the radiating 
pedicles in the flower cluster of the wild carrot and of the other 
in the green organs below the head of the china aster. These 
bracts sometimes take unusual forms, as that at the base of the 
small cluster of flowers of the linden, and from which the cluster 
appears to grow. These bracts often fill an important part in the 
arrangement of clusters of flowers though many clusters are 
without bracts, 
Coming to the most common arrangement of flower clusters we 
may conveniently arrange them in the form of a table: 
I. Flowers arranged along the plant stem without flower stems © 
Or with very, Short ones; 3) 24 eye ee ee te cents 
II. Arranged along the plant stem on short flower stems, but 
which are gradually somewhat longer toward the base 
A Raceme 
Ill. A similar arrangement, but each flower stem branching into 
two or more . . . . . A Compound Raceme or Panicle 
IV. Flowers on flower stems branching from nearly the same 
point and reaching about the same level . A Simple Corymb 
VY. Flowers borne on branched divisions of a corymb 
A Compound Corymb 
VI. and VII. Flowers on somewhat long flower stems all from 
the same point and radiating like the rods of an umbrella 
to a common level or rounded (Figs. VI and VII) An Umbel 
VIII. The flower stems of an umbel branched to form secondary 
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IX. A spike more or less surrounded on at least one side by a 
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X. The flowers arranged more or less compactly on a receptacle 
and surrounded by bracts 2.0. °. 5% tg a eee 
XI, Inflorescence on a succession of new axes, the primary, 
secondary, etc., axes each terminated by a flower . A Cyme 
XII. A cyme in which the inflorescence coils upon itself 
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XIII. Arrangement similar to a panicle, but the branches one- 
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