100 



OBGANOGRAPIIY. 



BOOK I. 



developemeiit, so that, instead of being lengthened into a 

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

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

 Jangiiage of some botanists, the receptacle of the fioxner {Jig.lA.) 



74 



75 



When the receptacle is not fleshy, bnt is surroimded b}^ an 

 involucre, it is called the clhianthium (the thalamus of Tour- 

 nefort), as in Compositae, oi-, in the language of Richard, 

 plioranthium ; the former term is that generally adopted ; 

 Lessing, however, calls it rachis. But if the receptacle is 

 fleshy, and is not enclosed within an involucrum, as in Dor- 

 stenia and Ficus [fig. 74.), it is then called by Link Hijpan- 

 tlioclium ; the same wi'iter formerly named it Amphanthiu?n, a 

 term now abandoned. With receptacles of this sort, which 

 are depressed and distended branches, are not unfrequently 

 confounded parts of a different nature, as in the Strawberry, 

 the soft, succulent centre of which (fig. 75.) is evidently the 

 growing point (see p. 56.), excessively enlarged, and bearing 

 the carpels upon its surface. See Disk, further on. 



According to the different modes in which the inflorescence 

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

 tion 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 {epi, Fr.), {Jig. 77.); if they are 

 pedicellate, under the same circumstances, they form a raceme 

 {grappe, Fr.), {Jig. 78.), as in the Hyacinth : the raceme and 

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



