318 



RECEPTACLE ITS FORMS. 



[BOOK i. 



in some of the single-flowered spikelets, the same writer then 

 distinguishes it by the name of acicula. 



When the part which bears the flowers is repressed in its 

 development, so that, instead of being lengthened into a 

 rachis, it forms a flattened area on which the flowers are 

 arranged, it becomes what is called a receptacle ; or, in the 

 language of some botanists, the receptacle of the flower (fig. 

 72.) 



72 73 



When the receptacle is not fleshy, but is surrounded by an 

 involucre, it has been called the clinanthium (the thalamus of 

 Tournefort,) as in Composites, or, in the language of Richard, 

 phoranthium : Lessing calls this part the rachis. But if the 

 receptacle is fleshy, and is not enclosed within an involucrum, 

 as in Dorstenia (fig. 73.) and Ficus, it is then called by Link 

 hypanthodium ; the same writer formerly named it amphan- 

 thium, a term now abandoned. With receptacles of this sort, 

 which are depressed and distended branches, are not unfre- 

 quently confounded parts of a different nature, as in the 

 Strawberry, the soft, succulent centre of which (fig. 74.) is 

 evidently the growing point, excessively enlarged, and bearing 

 the carpels upon its surface. See RECEPTACLE at a future 

 page. 



According to the different modes in which the inflorescence 

 is arranged, it has received different names, the right appli- 



