THE CYMOSE TYPE. 



151 



for any loose and diversely branched cluster, with pedicellate 

 flowers. It is therefore difficult to restrict it in practice to the 

 indeterminate type. 



279. Varieties of Determinate or Cymose Inflorescence. The 

 plan of this type has been sufficiently explained. (270.) Its 

 simplest condition is that of a solitary terminal flower, peduncu- 

 late or pedicellate (as in Fig. 282), or sessile. The production 

 of more flowers necessitates new axes from beneath, from the 

 axils of adjacent leaves or bracts. These, being later, render 

 the evolution centrifugal. The simplest flower-cluster (unless 

 we call the solitary flower of Fig. 282 a one-flowered cluster) is 

 that of Fig. 283, where a secondary floral axis or peduncle has 

 developed from the axil of each leaf of the uppermost pair, or 

 where with alternate leaves there is a single uppermost leaf, and 

 then only one such peduncle, and thus is produced a three- (or 

 two-) flowered cymose cluster. The flower of the primary axis 

 is marked by its bractless peduncle (therefore a pedicel) ; the 

 lateral and secondary peduncles are known (commonly or nor- 

 mally) by their bracts or bract ; the portion below the bracts 

 is proper peduncle ; that above, of single internode, pedicel. 

 Bracts, like other leaves, have potential buds in their axils ; these 

 in an inflorescence give the third order of ramification, each 

 branch tipped with its flower ; and so on. 



280. The Cyme is the general name of this kind of flower-cluster 

 in its various forms. One of these very simple c}'mes, by itself or 

 as a part of a larger cyme, may be called a Cymule. The regular 



cj'mc usually accompanies opposite or other grades of verticillate 

 leaves, but is not rare in the alternate arrangement. It is 

 readiest understood in an opposite-leaved plant with regular 

 opposite ramification, as in an Arenaria, Fig. 292. By its con- 

 stitution, a cyme proceeds from simple to compound. It mat- 



FIG. 292. Dichotoiuous or Mparous cyme (cyme bipare of Bravais, Dichasium of 

 Eichler) of Arenaria Michauxii. 



