GENERAL SUMMARY. 315 



branches, are often protected in their young state by 

 scales which are nothing but the outermost appendicular 

 organs of the young branch, modified by their position 

 (Book iv. Ch. 6). 



33d. The flower, in which is the apparatus destined 

 for the fecundation, is a kind of terminal bud formed of 

 verticillate appendicular organs, the outermost of which 

 act the part of protecting organs, the innermost of 

 sexual ones ; but they are capable of changing their 

 office by being transformed either into leaves, or from 

 one into another (Book iii. Ch. 2). 



34th. In the modifications or transformations of the 

 appendicular organs, each is only usually converted into 

 the nature of the verticil which follows or precedes it in 

 the order of development or position. The first phe- 

 nomenon, which is the most frequent, has received the 

 name of Ascending or Direct Metamorphosis, and 

 the second that of Descending or Retrograde Meta- 

 morphosis (Book iii. Ch. 2). 



35th. The flower being formed of verticillate organs 

 is necessarily terminal with regard to the pedicel, at 

 least when the pedicel is not prolonged beyond it, as 

 happens accidentally in certain proliferous flowers 

 (Book iii. Ch. 1). 



36th. Pedicels near one another, and composing the 

 same inflorescence, are disposed after three systems : — 

 1st, the outer or lateral ones are developed first, and the 

 flowering proceeds indefinitely in a centripetal order; 

 2d, the central one, which is necessarily terminal, flowers 

 first, and the flowering proceeds in a centrifugal order; 

 3d, these two laws are combined, the one affecting the 

 general axis, the other the lateral branches (Book iii. 

 Ch. 1). 



37th. The number of verticils in phanerogamous 

 flowers, is usually four ; but it may vary, being either 



