FLOWERING PLANTS INTRODUCTORY 97 



spreading of a plant, any arrangements to ensure its vegetative 

 reproduction should always be looked into carefully. 



The flower of the Buttercup is a very suitable one to examine 

 in the first place, and in the light of its study we shall be able to 

 consider some general features of flowers which will prepare the 

 way for the special descriptions of plants which follow. We have 

 seen that the flower is the part of the Flowering Plant by which 

 the seeds are formed, as a result of a complicated process of sexual 

 reproduction. The flower can thus be recognised as the organ 

 of sexual reproduction of the Flowering Plant. In its construction 

 the flower is a shoot specially modified for this purpose. It 

 consists, as we shall see, of a stem bearing lateral organs, which 

 correspond to leaves, though very unlike the foliage leaves in 

 appearance. Further, the flowers are always borne on the shoot, 

 never on the root, and in their position correspond to branches. 

 As a rule each flower will be found to stand in the axil of a 

 leaf, which is often much smaller than the foliage-leaves of 

 the plant, and is called a bract. The flowers are often grouped 

 together on special regions of the shoot, the whole association of 

 flowers forming what is known as an inflorescence. 



In a strong plant of the Buttercup the main shoots, after bearing 

 the crowded foliage-leaves described above, lengthen and become 

 branched. If carefully looked at it will be found that the main 

 shoot ends in a flower, and similarly the summit of each branch 

 bears a flower. This whole region of the shoot may be called the 

 inflorescence, and, in contrast to the vegetative region below, it 

 has elongated internodes, while the leaves borne singly at its 

 nodes are reduced in size and differ in form from the foliage- 

 leaves. The uppermost of these reduced leaves (bracts) may 

 consist only of a sheath and a small green blade. Branching 

 takes place from the buds in the axils of the bracts. The flower 

 at the end of the main shoot is the first to open, and is followed 

 by those terminating the branches. From the axils of the small 

 bracts on the latter further branching proceeds. The whole of 

 this region of the shoot, with its reduced leaves and numerous 

 flowers, has evidently the display of the flowers rather than of the 

 leaves as its function (Fig. 50). 



Many other inflorescences are constructed on the same general 



VOL. III. 7 



