SCALE-LEAVES, FOLIAGE-LEAVES, FLORAL-LEAVES. 641 



first bud (plumule) situated above the hypocotyl (cf. fig. 2). In this case the floral 

 leaves, collected together to form the flower, follow directly above the foliage- 

 leaves on the same shoot. Such a flower is called terminal. Much more frequently 

 the flowering axis or peduncle is inserted laterally on an older shoot, and origin- 

 ates close above a leaf, called a subtending leaf; here we speak of lateral flowers. 

 Usually several flowers are grouped in a definite way, and the term inflorescence 

 (iiiflorescentla) has been introduced to distinguish these groupings. The sitbtendioig 

 leaf (folium fulcrans) either agrees in general character with the lower foliage- 

 leaves, and is then said to be " leaf -like ", or it differs in shape and size as well as in 

 colouring, and is then spoken as a bract (bractea). 



These leaves, differing from foliage-leaves, always have a special relation to the 

 processes of fertilization; and are therefore to be reckoned with the floral-leaves. 

 Frequently a whole inflorescence is surrounded and supported by a single enormous 

 bract, and in such infforescences, which are very characteristic of palms and aroids, 

 the bracts at the base of the individual flower-stalks are usually undeveloped. This 

 large common bract is called a spathe (spatha). The Climbing Palm (Desmoncus} 

 illustrated in fig. 157 ^, has such a spathe beset with prickles. It sometimes hap- 

 pens that some of the flowers of the inflorescence do not develop, and that then 

 bracts are to be seen without flowers. If such " empty bracts " are found crowded 

 together at the base of the inflorescence arranged at one level, or are there grouped 

 in very close spiral revolutions, we speak of an involucre (involucrum). Some- 

 times they are to be seen at the apex of the whole inflorescence, the group forming 

 what we may call a crest. Minute, stiff', dry bracts, without chlorophyll, in the 

 centre of thickly crowded inflorescences are called palem (jKilece). 



In flowers we distinguish perianth-leaves, stamens, and carpels. The pierianth- 

 leaves are arranged either spirally or in whorls. The former arrangement is 

 observed most noticeably in the cacti, of which a species, the " Queen of the 

 Night " (to be described later on account of its blossoming at night, and of various 

 other interesting features) is illustrated in the Plate VII. here inserted. In the 

 flowers of this plant more than a hundred perianth - leaves are so arranged at 

 small vertical intervals along a spiral line that the smallest stand lowest, the 

 largest uppermost, not unlike the leaves of the involucral cup around the capitulum 

 of a composite. This spiral arrangement, however, is rare, at least in such a 

 striking form. Much more frequently the perianth -leaves fomi two successive 

 whorls. If the lower whorl consists of green leaves, which agree in texture and in 

 general appearance with foliage-leaves, while the upper is composed of more delicate 

 leaf-structures displaying all possible colours except green, the lower is called the 

 calyx, and the upper the corolla. If all these perianth -leaves are sliaped and 

 coloured very much alike, so that there is no marked contrast between the whorls, 

 we then speak of a perigone (perigonium). This may be either gi-een like a calyx, 

 or coloured like a corolla. 



The stamens (stamina), the " attire " of the older botanists, are, like the peri- 

 anth-leaves, usually whorled, or, moi'e i-arely, arranged in spirals. Each stamen 



Vol. I. 41 



