37 



CHAPTER IV.-THE INFLORESCENCE AND FLOWER. 



35. A shoot which bears a flower Flowering- 



is called a flowering-shoot, and like an ordinary leafy shoot it shoot> 

 may be axillary, or terminal. In some species the flowering 

 shoots spring from the older branches, or stems, from which 



the leaves have disappeared, as in Ougeinia dalbergioides and 

 Ficus Cunia. 



The flowering shoot frequently branches and produces, not inflorescence. 

 one, but several flowers. The collection of flowering shoots thus 

 formed is the inflorescence. According as the flowering shoots 

 are stiff and erect, or drooping and pendulous, so is the 

 inflorescence described as erect, or pendulous. The inflorescence 

 varies greatly in size : in the Teak it is very extensive and is 

 then described as ample, or merely large, whereas in other 

 cases it is reduced to a few small flowers, or even to a single 

 flower, in which case the flowers are solitary, and the inflores- 

 cence may be further said to be many- or few-flowered, and much- 

 branched or little-branched. Again if its branches are close 

 together the inflorescence is compact, or dense, otherwise it is 

 lax, or loose. 



The first important point to notice regarding the flowering Bracts, 

 shoots is that the leaves which they bear, and from the axils 

 of which they spring, are usually smaller than the ordinary 

 foliage leaves, of* a different shape and sometimes also of a 

 different colour. Such altered leaves are called bracts. Those 

 which are borne on the ultimate branches of the flowering 

 shoots, i.e. on the stalks of the individual flowers, are distin- 

 guished by the name of bracteoles. A flowering shoot on which 

 bracts are produced is said to be bracteate, if no bracts are 

 produced it is ebracteate. 



The stalk of a flower is the peduncle ; when the peduncle 

 branches, that portion of it from which the lateral flowering 

 branches arise is the rhachis and the stalks of the single 

 flowers are then called pedicels, terms which will recall the 

 analogous ones of petiole, rhachis and petiolule employed for 

 the leaf. Stalked flowers are said to be pedunculate, or 

 pedicellate, as the case may be, while flowers without a stalk 

 are sessile. 



36. We have seen above that 



there are two principal kinds of branching, viz., monopodial 

 and cymose, and according to the way in which the flowering 



ceuce 



