194 GENERAL BOTANY 



In other cases the condensation is less complete, and 

 not only are the flowers all perfect, but the bracts occur 

 between them, and not all at the bottom in the form 

 of an involucre, for example in GOMPHRENA one of 

 the family AMARANTACEJ3. 



3. But examine now a bunch of flowers of IXORA, or 

 CINCHONA, or the common pink SILENE the Catch-fly 

 of gardens on the hills 1 . Some may be fully expanded, 

 others still folded in bud; and they are mixed up to- 

 gether in, at first sight, no such obvious arrangement, 

 as in the corymb or head, where those at the edge 

 open first, the middle ones last. But the bunch can be 

 easily divided into three lesser bunches, and these again 

 into three, and we may go on dividing by three, till 

 we come at last to a little group of three flowers only, 

 of which the middle one always opens or unfolds 

 earlier than the side ones (fig. 47). This is a typical 

 cymose arrangement, each little group of three flowers 

 being termed a cyme. In it the peduncle (of the cyme) 

 ends in a flower, and has two little scales (bracteoles) 

 on it, from the axils of which arise the pedicels of the 

 side flowers. The order of the flowers is, therefore, 

 the exact opposite to that in the raceme, for in the 

 latter the terminal flower is the last to be formed and 

 to open, the lateral flowers are earlier, while in 

 the cyme the central flower opens first, the lateral 

 after it. 



Of cymose inflorescences there are also several 

 types, termed respectively : 



(i) The dichasial, when the branches (pedicels) 

 are in pairs as in IXORA, and CARISSA CARUN- 

 DAS, HYPERICUM JAPONICUM, etc. and each pair 



