CORYMBS 



119 



ject around three ideas: solitary 

 flowers, corymbose clusters, cymose 

 clusters. 



247. Solitary Flowers.— In 

 many cases flowers are borne 

 singly. They are then said to be 

 solitary. The solitary flower may 

 be either at the end of the main 

 shoot or axis (Fig. 181), when it 

 is said to be terminal, or from 

 the side of the shoot (Fig. 182), 

 when it is said to be lateral. 

 The lateral flower is also said to be axillary. 



248. Corymbose Clusters. 



183. Leafy flower-cluster of fuchsia. 



184. Racemes of sweet 

 clover. 



If the 



flower -bearing axils were rather close 

 together, an open or leafy flower-cluster 

 might result, as in Fig. 183. The fuchsia 

 continues to grow from the tip, and the 

 older flowers are left farther and farther 

 behind. If the cluster were so short as 

 to be flat or convex on top, the outer- 

 most flowers would be the older. A 

 flower-cluster in which the lower or outer 

 flowers open first is said to be a corym- 

 bose cluster. It is sometimes said to be 

 an indeterminate cluster, since it is the re- 

 sult of a type of growth which may go on 

 more or less continuously from the apex. 

 249. The simplest form of a definite 

 corymbose cluster is a raceme, which is 

 an unbranched open cluster in which the 

 flowers are borne on short stems and 

 bloom from below (that is, from the older 

 part of the shoot) upwards. The raceme 

 may be terminal to the main branch, or it 



