ORGANOOEAPHY AND GLOSSOLOGY. 79 



CHAP. IV. 



REPRODUCTIVE ORGANS. 



FLOWER BUDS (85.). INFLORESCENCE MODES OF (86.). 



FLORAL WHORLS PERIANTH (92.). GLUMACEOUS FLOWERS 



(9fi.). STAMENS AND PISTILS (97.). DISK (101.). 



FLORAL MODIFICATIONS (102.). ESTIVATION (104.). 



(85.) Flower Buds. NUMEROUS examples are perpetually 

 occurring, in which the attentive observer of nature may 

 catch a glimpse of the mysterious connection which 

 subsists between the organs of nutrition and reproduction, 

 in plants. Instances continually present themselves, of 

 flowers whose separate portions are singularly charac- 

 terised, by possessing an intermediate condition, partly 

 leaf- like, and partly like those variously coloured append- 

 ages which constitute the blossom. By an accurate ex- 

 amination of these and other "monstrosities," as all 

 deviations from the ordinary conditions of vegetation are 

 termed, it has been clearly ascertained, that the organs 

 of reproduction and nutrition are merely modifications 

 of some one common germ, which may be developed 

 according to circumstances, either in the form of a 

 flower-bud, or of a leaf-bud. In the latter case we have 

 shown, how this body becomes a branch and leaves ; and 

 we have now to explain the conditions and characters of 

 those several organs which are developed from the flower- 

 bud, and collectively termed the "inflorescence." It 

 would be equally erroneous for us to call the flower- 

 bud a metamorphosed state of the leaf-bud, as to say 

 the leaf-bud was an altered condition of the flower-bud ; 

 and we are nearer the truth, when we consider each of 

 them to be a peculiar modification of the same kind of 

 germ, adapted in the one case to perform the functions 

 of nutrition, and in the other, those of reproduction. 



