1897 | BRIEFER ARTICLES 43! 
duced a branch except in case the axillary bud was destroyed or pro- 
duced some other organ. Further investigation shows this to be a 
case precisely similar to that of Verbascum, and the extra-axillary 
branch is produced by the primary axillary bud while a secondary bud 
Verbascum Thap- 
es. e€ num. 
bers indicate the 
order of develop- 
ment and also of 
flowering. 
appears in the axil of the leaf. This also occurs in 
Juglans nigra and species of Carya, though here the 
primary axillary bud is not so far removed from the 
axil and the secondary remains quite small. To the 
same class belong those minute buds which occasion- 
ally appear in the axil of a leaf after the primary 
axillary bud has developed into a branch, as in the 
above mentioned cases where the terminal bud pro- 
duces an inflorescence and the vegetative axis is 
continued by the axillary bud. 
There is nothing. anomalous about the whorled 
flower clusters that occur in the axils of the leaves of 
certain of the Labiatz, Polygonacee, etc., except that 
the axis of the inflorescence is very much reduced. 
This is not always plainly evident, but the illustration 
of Mentha Canadensis (fig. 4) shows an inflorescence 
in which this reduction is not complete, and the 
whole cluster of flowers is plainly seen to be simply a 
much reduced cyme. Being familiar with such an inflorescence as that 
of Mentha Canadensis it is not difficult to trace the same formation in 
cases where the reduction is complete and the flowers aresessile. Thus 
in Lycopus sinuatus, for example, the flowers are all sessile, but they may 
be seen to be divided into two lateral groups with the single flower 
terminating the central axis. 
In Polygonum fascicles of flowers are surrounded at the base by a 
group of minute scarious bracts, to which the individual flowers are 
axillary, while in Rumex the flowers are so numerous and so crowded. 
that the bracts are obsolete, but the origin of the flowers is undoubt- 
edly the same as that of the flowers of Polygonum. 
The origin and normal arrangement of buds may frequently be 
inferred from the order of flowering, for anthesis takes place in the 
order of development. Ordinarily, in a fascicle formed by the reduc- 
tion of a determinate inflorescence, the flower which blooms first. 
_ terminates the central axis of the cluster, and the next to bloom will 
ie be the terminal buds of the lateral clusters, and so on. In a dense 
