36 STRUCTURAL AND PHYSIOLOGICAL BOTANY. 



not lengthen beyond those upper series of metamorphosed 

 leaves which constitute the sexes. 



284. The lengthened part of the axis, from the point of its 

 connection with the stem, as far as the floral envelopes, is 

 called the peduncle. 



285. When several peduncles spring from the axis at short 

 distances from each other, the axis receives the name of racMs, 

 and the peduncles themselves are called pedicels. 



286. There is never more than one flower to each peduncle, 

 strictly speaking ; therefore, when we speak of a two-flowered 

 peduncle, we only mean that two flowers, each having its 

 peculiar pedicel, terminate the axis, which is then considered a 

 peduncle common to each pedicel. 



287. Every flower, with its peduncle and bractlets, being 

 the developement of a flower-bud, and flower-buds being 

 altogether analogous to leaf-buds, it follows, as a corollary, 

 that every flower, with its peduncle and bractlets, is a meta- 

 morphosed branch. 



288. And further, the flowers being abortive branches, 

 whatever are the laws of the arrangement of branches with 

 respect to each other, the same will be the laws of the arrange- 

 ment of flowers with respect to each other. 



289. Flower-buds, however, being much less subject to 

 abortion than leaf-buds, flowers are more symmetrically dis- 

 posed than branches, and appear to possess their own peculiar 

 order of developement. 



290. As flower-buds can only develope from the axil of a 

 bract, it follows, that while a pedicel without bracts can 

 never accidentally produce other flowers, any one-flowered 

 pedicel, on which bracts are present, can, and frequently does, 

 bear several flowers. 



291. In consequence of a flower and its peduncle being a 

 branch in a particular state, the rudimentary or metamor- 

 phosed leaves which constitute bracts, floral envelopes, and 

 sexes, are subject to exactly the same laws of arrangement as 

 regularly formed leaves. 



292. The manner in which the floral organs, especially the 

 calyx and corolla, are arranged before expansion takes place, 

 is called the Aestivation or pra-flomtion. 



