OF INFLORESCENCE. 5 



Section I. 

 Of the Inflorescence in general. 



A flower, considered in an organographical point of 

 view, is an assemblage of several verticils (usually four) 

 of foliaceous origin, disposed above or within one 

 another, and so close that their internodes are not 

 distinct. 



These verticillate organs being, then, lateral, it would 

 seem that the stem or branch which bears the flower 

 would be prolonged beyond it; and this prolongation 

 does, in fact, take place sometimes accidentally : Turpin 

 has figured some examples, and I have myself observed 

 it in the Pear and Rose. Of the latter I have given a 

 figure here (PI. 17); but it is not usually so, and it 

 almost always happens in the natural course of things 

 that the flower truly terminates the branch, which is so 

 exhausted by the abundant nourishment which the 

 different floral organs attract, that it has not the vegeta- 

 tive force necessary for its prolongation ; this only takes 

 place, in the cases above mentioned, when the flower, 

 being sterile, attracts the juices but little, and the 

 branch at the same time is well nourished. It may, 

 then, be declared as a general law, that the flower is 

 terminal with respect to the branch which bears it. 



This branch has received the name of Pedicel (Pedi- 

 cellus). It is sometimes long and distinct, at others 

 very short and hardly visible ; in this case it is usual 

 to say that the flower is Sessile, which only signifies in 

 Organography that its pedicel is very short. 



Since, then, every flower is terminal upon the pedicel, 

 the whole study of Inflorescences ought to rest upon 



