OF INFLORESCENCE. 9 



to what takes place in the flower when its axis is pro- 

 longed, as we have seen above. 



We may connect with these facts that which happens 

 in Hoya carnosa, although it relates to the prolongation 

 of the peduncle, and not to that of the stem. The 

 peduncle, or floral branch, arises from the axil of the 

 leaves ; the first year it bears a kind of umbel composed 

 of pedicels, which are developed in the axils of very 

 small bracts. These pedicels disarticulate and fall off 

 after flowering, but the peduncle remains several years: 

 at each period of flowering it is prolonged a little at its 

 extremity, and it bears the traces of all the successive 

 flowerings, as if they were the remains of a raceme of 

 the same year. The fact is remarkable, as presenting 

 the only example that I know of a peduncle which 

 persists and flowers several years in succession. 



There is so little difference between flowers said to be 

 arranged in racemes, or spikes, and those said to have 

 axillary pedicels, that it is not rare to find stems or 

 branches in which both states are united ; thus in seve- 

 ral species of Digitalis, and a multitude of other plants, 

 the lower flowers are solitary in the axils of large and 

 distant leaves, whilst the upper ones are in the axils of 

 bracts, which are small and near together. Descriptive 

 botanists have been accustomed to designate this inter- 

 mediate state by the terms of a raceme, or spike, in- 

 terrupted AT THE BASE, or WITH LEAVES AT THE 

 base. In a number of cases we see the lower flowers 

 solitary in the axils of leaves, which gradually diminish, 

 approach each other, and the flowers then form a true 

 raceme. All the difference between this case and that 

 of ordinary racemes is, that sometimes the transform- 

 ation of the floral leaves into bracts takes place sud- 

 denly from the first, which bears a flower in its axil ; 

 sometimes only gradually as they approach the top. 



