44 



PHANEROGAMS. 



does not unfold, so that the number of branches visible is often less than that 

 of the leaves (as in Agave, Aloe, Dracaena, Palms, many Grasses &c.). But some- 

 times several buds are formed in the axil of a leaf, and if the insertion of the leaf 

 is broad these are placed side by side, as occurs in many bulbs (Fig. 122, p. 154). 

 In Musa a number of flowers even stand side by side in the axil of a bract, 

 and in Musa Etisefe two rows one over the other. In the Spadiciflorse the bracts 

 are often absent \ and the ebracteate flowers stand on the rachis of the inflorescence, 

 but are distinctly lateral in their origin. This is also the explanation of the 

 branching of Lemna, w'hich does not in general form any foliage-leaves, but 

 the vegetative portion of the plant consists of disc-like or swollen pordons of 

 the axis containing chlorophyll which braii-fh laterally out of one another, and 

 are connected together only by slender stalks, or soon separate. The plane of 



Fig. 390.— Bii'.b oi Fri/iliaria iinperiali^ in November: A longitudinal section of the whole bulb reduced, z z the coalescent 

 lower portions of the bulb-scales, bb their free upper portions; the scales enclose a cavity / which contains the decayed flower- 

 stem ; next year's bud is formed in the axil of the innermost scale ; its first leaves Vill form the new bulb, while its axis will 

 develope into the flower-stem; the root lu springs from the axis of this bud. B longitudinal section of the apical region of next 

 year's bud, j- apex of the stem, bb' b'' youngest leaves. 



ramification coincides with the surface of the water on which they float ; each shoot 

 produces only one or a pair of opposite lateral shoots, and the branching is therefore 

 distinctly cymose, sympodial, or, as in Lenma trisuka, dichasial. 



Besides the formation of shoots by the branching of the axis, adventitious 

 shoots also sometimes occur on leaves which perform the function of gemmae; 

 as for instance on the margins of the leaves of Hyacinthus Pouzohii and some 

 Orchids (Diill, Flora p. 348)-. The large gemmae which appear very regularly 

 at \h^ point of junction of the leaf-stalk and lamina, and at the base of the lamina 

 of Athenirus tenia/us, are especially striking. The small bulbs on the stem of 



the first leaf of a branch; but it appears from p. 771 as though the flower and the shoot that bears 

 it were the bifurcations of a dichotomy. 



^ Compare under Dicotyledons p. 554 



^ [On the buds developed on the leaves of Malaxis which exhibit a striking resemblance to the 

 ovules of Orchideae, see Dickie, Journ. Linn. Soc. vol. xiv, pp. i and 180. Dr. Dickie considers the 

 structure of these buds to favour the theory that the ovule is homologiDUS to a bud, the nucleus-like 

 body of the bud corresponding to an axis. See also Henslow on Malaxis, Mag. Nat. Hist, vol.1. 

 1829, pp. 441. 442. — Ed.] 



