OF INFLORESCENCE. 



Section II. 



Of Axillary, or Indefinite Inflorescences, or those with 

 a Centripetal Evolution. 



The branches bear the flowers laterally, and in a 

 scarcely definite number. They may be terminated by 

 a flower bud, which we shall examine in the following 

 section : or by a bud, in this case, which forms the 

 subject of this section, sometimes the branch does not 

 flower; sometimes it bears flowers in the axils of the 

 leaves, and the branch itself may elongate by the 

 development of the terminal bud. Let us follow the 

 details of this axillary position of the flowers, and let 

 us first take the most simple cases. 



If we examine the vegetation cither of the Periwinkle 

 (Vinca Major), or Veronica hederacea, &c, we find 

 that their stems or principal branches give rise to a 

 flower from most of their axils, and that the stem or 

 branch is prolonged by the apex ; and as the leaves of 

 the axil, from which the pedicels arise, are not per- 

 ceptibly different from ordinary ones, and as the length 

 of their internodes is well marked, we are content, in 

 describing the inflorescence of these plants, and all which 

 resemble them in this respect, to say, that their pedicels 

 are axillary and solitary. When the development of the 

 leaves, and all the organs of those plants, proceeds from 

 the base of the stem towards the apex, we remark that 

 their lower flowers are developed first, and the expan- 

 sion of them continues from the base upwards. Now, 

 from this which is observed so clearly in plants with 

 axillary pedicels, we shall proceed to discover it with 

 more or less decided variations in all those which have 

 not a terminal inflorescence. 



