OF INFLORESCENCE. 41 



convenient in practice for avoiding long circumlo- 

 cutions. 



Bracts are, as we have said, leaves modified by the 

 production of flowers, which, developing in their axil, 

 attract a great part of the sap ; whence it results that 

 they are in general smaller, less divided, and more 

 membranous than the leaves of the plant. Frequently 

 they participate, as well as the pedicels, in the colour of 

 the flower, as is seen in Hortensia, (of which that which 

 is commonly called the flower, is essentially formed of 

 coloured bracts,) in Salvia splendens, Melampyrum, &c. 

 The last presents the double singularity of the coloured 

 bracts being larger and more divided than the leaves. 



The colouring of bracts takes place the more readily, 

 in proportion as they are nearer the flowers. When the 

 leaves of the plant are compound, the bracts of the first 

 ramifications are sometimes so likewise, but most fre- 

 quently they are reduced to simple scales resembling 

 the rudiment of a petiole. 



Bracts are often triple or trifid; and in this case the 

 two lateral ones, or the two lateral lobes of a bract 

 apparently single, are rudiments of stipules : thus, in 

 plants where the stipules are distinct from the petiole, 

 we frequently find, at the base either of the floral 

 branches or of the pedicels, three distinct bracts, the 

 two lateral being the smaller. In plants where the sti- 

 pules are adherent to the petiole, we frequently find 

 bracts with three lobes : sometimes the stipules retain, 

 in this state of bracts, a large development, and the true 

 leaf is either entirely or partly abortive ; the bract is 

 then replaced by two lateral and opposite ones, as is 

 seen in Cliffortia, &c. This phenomenon is analogous 

 to what takes place in Lathy rus Aphaca. 



There are plants where the floral leaf, in being trans- 

 formed into a bract, instead of taking a membranous and 



