SECT. I. OBGANOGRAPHY AND GLOSSOLOGY. 89 



An umbellate form, may evidently result also from 

 a terminal inflorescence, where the leaves are whorled, 

 and the secondary buds become flowers without pro- 

 ducing tertiary buds. It often happens (as in the 

 genus Euphorbia) that the main axis is crowned by an 

 umbel of this description, whilst the lower part pos- 

 sesses the character of a raceme. 



" Capitulum." This 

 form bears much the same 

 relation to an umbel, that 

 the spike does to the ra- 

 ceme ; the pedicels of the 

 single flowers being want- 

 ing, or scarcely distinguish- 

 able. The flowers are, in 

 consequence, crowded into 

 a dense head (fig. 8?.)- 



(91.) Bractea. We 

 have said, as the flower- 

 bud expands, a succession 

 of various kinds of append- 

 ages, which depart more or less from the leafy struc- 

 ture, are developed round the peduncle, and that all of 

 these would have become true leaves, if the bud had 

 been impressed with the character of the leaf-bud. 

 Of these appendages, the "bractese," as we stated 

 (art. 86'.), exhibit the closest approximation to the 

 leaf itself, and, in many cases, are only nominally dis- 

 tinguishable from it, by their position alone. In general, 

 however, they are of much smaller dimensions than the 

 leaves, and are often reduced to mere scales. Some- 

 times they approach the appearances presented by the 

 parts which compose the flower, and are brilliantly 

 coloured. In the "cone" (fig. 137-)? which is a 

 modified form of the spike, having the flowers very 

 closely arranged together, the bracteae become large 

 scales. These, in the fir tribe are coriaceous, and mem- 

 branaceous in the hop. 



When the bractese are arranged in a distinct whorl 



