32 VEGETABLE ORGANOGRAPHY. 



tation of this plant without seeing the truth of what I 

 have just set forth ; and I have concluded that it must 

 he the same in those species of Phyllanthus said to have 

 pinnate leaves. The manner in which Martius describes 

 those which he has observed, proves that he has arrived 

 at the same results, and that consequently the pre- 

 tended flower-bearing leaflets of these plants are penni- 

 form branches. The observation of Phyllanthus Cochin- 

 chinensis in a living state has confirmed my opinion : 

 this case then enters into the general law of axillary 

 flowers. 



§ 5. — Epiphylious Inflorescences. 



Flowers are said to be Epiphyllous, or arising from 

 the leaves, in four cases : the first, which enters into one 

 of the preceding, is where the peduncle is very inti- 

 mately united along the petiole (if it exist), and the 

 middle nerve of the leaf, so that the flowers appear to 

 arise from the limb at the point where the union ceases : 

 this is what seems to take place in Polycardia, where 

 the union takes place as far as the top of the middle 

 nerve ; in these cases, if the peduncle bear any bracts at 

 its apex, the flowers seem to arise from a disc of the 

 leaf. 



The second case deserves this name still less ; it is 

 where the floral branches are large, dilated, green, and 

 flattened in the form of leaves ; we see this, for example, 

 in Xylophylla (PI. 16, fig. 1) and Opuntia ; but it is so 

 true that these bodies which bear the flowers are 

 branches and not leaves, that when their subsequent 

 development is followed, they are seen to change gra- 

 dually into cylindrical branches, furnished with others 

 like what they themselves originally were. 



