OF INFLORESCENCE. 15 



axis of which is so short that all the pedicles might 

 appear to spring from the summit, as in the Candytuft 

 (Iberis) ; and thus on comparing the corymbiform 

 raceme, we come to consider that the latter is a raceme, 

 the axis of which is wanting, or nearly so. I shall, 

 perhaps, be better understood by a rude metaphor. 

 Let us suppose a floral branch formed as a telescope, 

 which bears a pedicel above each of the tubes of which 

 it is composed ; when all the tubes are pulled out and 

 lengthened we have a raceme : let us push them half 

 way back, it will still be a raceme, but very short; let 

 us shut them up completely, and we shall have a terminal 

 umbel. When we compare together the inflorescences 

 of Eryngium and other Umbellifera?, &c, it is difficult 

 not to see this extreme analogy of umbels, with racemes 

 with a short axis. This analogy is also remarkable in 

 another respect ; at the base of each pedicel of an 

 umbel is found in general a bract, or small leaf, and 

 another is found at the base of the oeduncles of the 

 general umbel: thus, in this case, as in those we have above 

 analyzed, it is true to say, that the pedicels arise from 

 the axil of a leaf, and that the compound inflorescences 

 are formed by floral branches, which also arise from the 

 axils of their proper leaves. 



4th. Botanists have confounded, under the name of 

 Capitulum, or Head, several inflorescences in reality 

 very different, and which present nothing in common 

 but very close flowers, either with the pedicels absent 

 or very short. Keeper has begun to give some exact- 

 ness to this incongruous assemblage, distinguishing the 

 glomerule, of which we shall speak under definite inflo- 

 rescences, and the capitulum, which makes part of the 

 indefinite ones. We may also even say that under the 

 name of capitulum we unite a particular state of each of 

 the preceding inflorescences. 



