INFLORESCENCE 1 8; 



3. Can you name any plants the buds of which serve as food for man ? 



4. How do flower buds differ in shape from leaf buds? 



5. At what season can the leaf bud and the flower bud first be 

 distinguished? 



6. Watch any of the trees about your home and see when the buds 

 that are to develop into leaves and flowers the next year are formed. 



INFLORESCENCE 



MATERIAL. A few typical flower clusters illustrating the definite 

 and indefinite modes of inflorescence. Some of those mentioned in 

 the text are : 



Indefinite : hyacinth, shepherd's purse, wall flower, parsley, lilac, blue 

 grass, smart weed (polygonuui), wheat, oak, willow, clover. 



Definite: chick weed, spurge (Euphorbia, various kinds), comfrey, 

 dead nettle (Lainium aiiiplexicaule), etc. Any other examples illus- 

 trating the principal kinds of cluster will do as well, but the subject 

 should not be taught without an examination of at least a few living 

 specimens of each sort. 



264. Definitions. Inflorescence is a term used to denote 

 the position and arrangement of flowers on the stem. It 

 is merely a mode of branch- 

 ing and follows the same 



laws that govern the branch- 

 ing of ordinary stems. 



The stalk that bears a 

 flower is called by botanists 

 the peduncle. In a cluster 

 the main axis is the com- 

 mon peduncle, or rhachis, and 

 the separate flower stalks 

 pedicels. 



265. Two Kinds of Inflores- 

 cence. The growth of 

 flower stems, like that of leaf 

 stems, is of two principal 



348. Solitary terminal flower of a lily. 



kinds, definite and indefinite, 



or as it is frequently expressed, determinate and indeter- 



