STRUCTURE.] 



SPIKE RACEME. 



319 



cation of which is of the first importance in descriptive 

 botany. If flowers are sessile along a common axis, as in 

 Plantago, the inflorescence is called a spike (fig. 76.) ; if they 

 are pedicellate, under the same circumstances, they form a 

 raceme, (fig. 77.), as in the Hyacinth: the raceme and the 

 spike differ, therefore, in nothing, except that the flowers of 

 the latter are sessile, of the former pedicellate. These are 

 the true characters of the raceme and spike, which have been 

 confused and misunderstood. 



76 



When the flowers of a spike are destitute of calyx and 

 corolla, the place of which is taken by bracts, and when with 

 such a formation the whole inflorescence falls off in a single 



