NOMENCLATURE OF THE APPENDAGES. 109 



b. Spindle-shaped or fusiform when it is thickest in the centre, 

 and accumulated at each end. It lies parallel to the surface of the 

 leaf, to which it is affixed by a very small foot-stalk, is hollow, and 

 contains a coloured fluid. This form of bristle is peculiar to the 

 genus malpighia or Barbadoes cherry. 



35. Compound: When they consist of more than 

 one piece, and are almost always solid. There are two 

 varieties of the compound bristle ; viz. the forked, and 

 the fasciculated. 



a. Forked the forked are, in some instances, merely rigid hair- 

 like bodies, terminating in two or three diverging points, as in the 

 hispid thrincia j but in other instances, as with the stems and leaves 

 of the hop-plant, the stalk of the bristle, which is supported on a firm 

 cellular tubercle, is very short, and its forked extremities resemble 

 two flattish awl-shaped bristles, pointing in opposite directions. 



b. Fasciculated consisting of a number of simple, straight bris- 

 tles, diverging from a "papillary knob, as in the creeping cactus. 



36. The bristles of plants have also received other 

 denominations, of which the terms striga, hook, barb, 

 and awn, must be mentioned. 



a. Striga, or stiff-bristles that variety of the awl-shaped, which 

 are seen in the common borage. 



h. Hamus or hook that kind of bristle which is hooked at its 

 extremity, as in the goose-grass or cleavers. 



c. Glochis or barb when several sharp tooth-like processes 

 are turned back from the apex of the bristle. 



d. Arista or awn a long bristle proceeding from the husk of 

 grasses, as in the common barley. 



37. The terms erect, stellate, plumose or feathery, 

 as applied to hairs, are also used with the same intent 

 of meaning, to bristles. 



