I 



CHAPTER III. 



RACEMOSE INFLORESCENCES. 



Terminal flower Scape Axillary flowers Leafy Raceme Racemes 

 with and without a terminal flower Corymb Corymboid Cyme 

 Umbel Centripetal and Acropetal Capitulum Spike 

 Catkin Spadix Analysis of simple Inflorescences Compound 

 Racemose Inflorescences Panicle Homogeneous and Hetero- 

 geneous Inflorescences. 



Confining our attention at first to the simplest and 

 commonest cases, the following typical examples of in- 

 florescence should be examined. 



It is very rare to^find the inflorescence consisting of 

 a single terminal flower, but such a case occurs occasion- 

 ally in the common Poppy, where the primary axis ends 

 in a slender stalk (peduncle) with one flower only the 

 simplest case of a definite inflorescence. On the other 

 hand it is not uncommon to find a solitary flower at the 

 end of a long peduncle arising from a bulb or rhizome 

 under ground, and at first sight this case appears similar 

 to the preceding; but on tracing the peduncle to its 

 insertion here we find it springs from the axil of a bulb- 

 scale, or a scale of the rhizome, &c. Such an inflorescence 

 is often termed a Scape, e.g. Tulip. 



If the shoot bears the flowers singly in the axils of 

 ordinary or but slightly altered green leaves, as occurs in 



w. III. 2 



