BRACTS AND FLORAL LEAVES. 75 
grains are developed. These escape, when ripe, as a yellow dust. 
When the andrecium is removed there still remain behind a lot 
of little spirally arranged green bodies, the carpels, called alto- 
gether the pistil or gynecium. Within each carpel is a cavity 
containing a minute oval body known as an ovule. In overblown 
‘specimens all the structures above described fall off except the 
carpels, which enlarge considerably, and form the buttercup jrwit, 
while the ovules become seeds. Sepals, petals, stamens, and 
carpels are alike floral leaves, though they depart more and more 
widely from the type presented by the foliage leaf. They will be 
dealt with in the above order, but it is first desirable to consider 
some points concerning the flower as a whole, and the receptacle. 
The inflorescence or arrangement of flowers upon the plant 
varies considerably in different cases. Since flower-buds are just 
as much young shoots as leaf-buds, we may expect to find them 
developed in corresponding situations, and this is actually the 
FIG. 30.—Flower of Buttercup. A. a vertical section ; c. sepals; pe. petals; e. stamens; 
pi. carpels. B. extrorse anther seen from outside, showing lobes. C. anther seen 
from inside. D. section of carpel; o. ovary; s. stigma; g. inverted ovule. E. 
section of an achene; jf. pericarp; t. seed-coat; p. endosperm ; e. minute embryo. 
case. In very rare cases, e.g., tulip, there is a single flower on 
the end of the main stem. ‘The plantis then uniaxial. The vast 
majority of flowers, however, belong to axes of higher order. 
The different kinds of inflorescence are classified under two 
headings, racemose and cymose, corresponding exactly to the 
methods of monopodial branching described on p. 24. (1.) The 
racemose or indefinite type possesses lateral flowers, which, in 
the simplest cases, ¢.g., pansy, spring from the axils of ordinary 
leaves. The growth in length of a stem ceases when a flower- 
bud is developed at its end, and this type is called “ indefinite ”’ 
because the axis ends in an ordinary leaf-bud, and therefore 
continues to elongate. The simplest case of (2.) the cymose or 
definite type is seen in the tulip and some other cases, where, 
as mentioned above, the main axis develops a flower-bud at its 
end and ceases to elongate. No other flower is developed. If 
