DETERMINATE INFLORESCENCE. 223 



on this account have failed to receive distinctive names. When, 

 for example, all the secondary axes connected with the inflores- 

 cence are arrested by terminal flowers without any 

 onward growth except what forms their footstalks or 

 pedicels, and these are nearly equal in length, a ra- 

 ceme-like inflorescence is produced, as in Fig. 252. 

 When the flowers are developed in this way, with 

 scarcely any pedicels, the spike is imitated. These 

 are essentially distinguished from the true raceme and 

 spike, however, by the reverse order of development 

 of the blossoms ; the terminal and then the upper ones 

 opening earliest, and the others expanding in succes- 

 sion from above downwards ; while the blossoming of 

 the raceme proceeds from below upwards. Or when, 

 by the elongation of the lower secondary axes, a cor- 

 ymb is imitated, the flowers are found to expand in 

 succession from the centre towards the circumference of the flat- 

 topped cluster, while the contrary occurs in the corymb. That is, 

 while the order in indeterminate inflorescence is centripetal (387), 

 that of the determinate mode is centrifugal. When the determi- 

 nate inflorescence assumes the corymbose form, which it more 

 commonly does, it has a distinctive name, viz. : 



403. The Cyme, This is a flat-topped, rounded or expanded in- 

 florescence, whether simple or compound, of the determinate class ; 

 of which those of the Laurustinus, Elder, Dogwood, and Hydran- 

 gea are fully developed and characteristic examples. More com- 

 monly it is from the upper axils alone that the flower-bearing 

 branches successively proceed, as indicated in Fig. 249-251. In 

 more compound and compact cymes (Fig. 237), such as those of 

 the Laurustinus, Dogwood, &c., the leaves or bracts are usually 

 minute, rudimentary, or abortive, and all the numerous flower-buds 

 of the cluster are fully formed before any of them expand ; and 

 the blossoming then runs through the whole cluster in a short time, 

 commencing in the centre of the cyme, and then in the centre of 

 each of its branches, or CYMULES, and thence proceeding centrifu- 

 gally. But in the Chickweeds (Fig. 253), in Hypericum, and 

 many such like plants, the successive production of the branches 

 and the evolution of the flowers, beginning with that which ar- 

 rests the growth of the primary axis, go on gradually through the 



FIG. 252. Definite inflorescence imitating a raceme. 



