STRUCTURE.] ORGANS OF FRUCTIFICATION BRACTS. 



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are about to be mentioned are called organs of fructification ; 

 their office being to reproduce the species by a process in 



some respects analogous to that which takes place in the 

 animal kingdom. The latter are, however, all modifications 

 of the former, as will hereafter be seen, and as the subject 

 of this division is in itself a kind of proof; bracts not being 

 exactly either organs of vegetation or reproduction, but 

 between the two. 



Some botanists call Bracts either the leaf from the axil of 

 which a flower is developed, such as we find in Veronica 

 agrestis ; or else all those leaves which are found upon the 

 inflorescence, and are situated between the true leaves and 

 the calyx. Others refuse the name of Bract to any organs 

 except such as are manifestly dissimilar to the ordinary 

 foliage ; and this is the common practice : mere leaves, to 

 which flowers are axillary, being called floral leaves. There 

 are, in reality, no exact limits between bracts and common 

 leaves ; but in general the former may be known by their 

 situation immediately below the calyx, by their smaller size, 

 difference of outline, colour, and other marks. They are 

 often entire, however much the leaves may be divided; 

 frequently scariose, either wholly or in part; sometimes 

 deciduous before the flowers expand; rarely very much 

 dilated, as in the Dittany of Crete (Origanum Dictamnus), 

 and a few other plants. It is often more difficult to distin- 

 guish bracts from the sepals of a polyphyllous calyx than 



