134 STRUCTURAL BOTANY. [114,115. 



CHAPTER XXV. 



INFLORESCENCE. 



341. Inflorescence is a term denoting the arrange- 

 ment of the flowers and their position upon the plant. 



All the buds of a plant are supposed to be originally of one and the same 

 nature, looking to the production of vegetative organs only. But at a certain 

 period, a portion of the buds of the living plant, by an unerring instinct little 

 understood, are converted from their ordinary intention into flower-buds, as 

 stated and illustrated in the foregoing Chapter. The flower-bud is incapable 

 of extension. While the leaf -bud may unfold leaf after leaf, and node after 

 node, to an indefinite extent, the flower-bud blooms, dies, and arrests forever 

 the extension of the axis which bore it. 



342. In position and arrangement, flower-buds can 

 not differ from leaf-buds, and both are settled by the 

 same unerring law which determines the arrangement 

 of the leaves. Accordingly, the flower-bud is always 

 found either terminal or axillary. In either case, a 

 single bud may develop either a compound inflores- 

 cence, consisting of several flowers with their stalks 

 and bracts, or a solitary inflorescence, consisting of a 

 single flower. 



343. The Peduncle is the flower-stalk. It bears no 

 leaves, or at least only such as are reduced in size and 

 changed in form, called bracts. If the peduncle is 

 wanting, the flower is said to be sessile. The simple 

 peduncle bears a single flower ; but if the peduncle be 

 divided into branches, it bears several flowers, and the 

 final divisions, bearing each a single flower, are called 

 pedicels. The main stem or axis of a compound 

 peduncle is called the rachis. 



344. The Scape is a flower-stalk which springs 

 from a subterranean stem, in such plants as are called 



