106 LABORATORY PRACTICE 



CHAPTER XXV 



METAMORPHOSIS 



THUS far everything that we have studied has been either 

 root, stem, or leaf, or a combination of these. The flower 

 itself is nothing more than an altered branch, and we may 

 consider briefly the arguments for considering the various 

 floral organs to be simply leaves, modified to perform the 

 special duties of reproducing the plant by seed. 



I. Position of the Flower upon the Stem. Looking back 

 over our study of anthotaxy, we find that the flowers are 

 either terminal (either solitary terminal flowers or in deter- 

 minate clusters) or lateral and axillary (either solitary axil- 

 lary flowers, or in indeterminate clusters). 



Turning back to our study of buds, we find that they were 

 either terminal or lateral structures and that the ordinary 

 lateral buds were axillary. From leaf buds grow branches ; 

 from flower buds grow branches with their leaves altered to 

 form the various parts of the flower. 



Consequently we see that the flower occupies exactly the 

 same position upon the stem which an ordinary branch does, 



II. The parts of the flower follow the laws of phyllotaxy 

 in their arrangement. The parts of the flower are arranged 

 in whorls, with the whorls alternating in most flowers, and 

 consequently follow the cyclical arrangement (see Chapter 



