411 



VII. INFLORESCENCE. 



A. ITS BRANCHING. 



(a) Peduncle. 

 (6) Pedicel. 

 (c) Receptacle. 



" An inflorescence is a flowering branch, or the flowering summit of a plant above the last stem- 

 leaver, with its branches, bracts, and flowers .... 



A psiunde is the stalk of a solitary flower, or of an inflorescence; that is to say, the portion of the 

 flowering branch from the last stem-leaf to the flower, or to the first ramification of the inflorescence, or 

 even up to its last ramifications; but the portion extending from the first to the last ramifications or the 

 axis of inflorescence is often distinguished under the name of rachis .... 



•' A pedicel is the last branch of an inflorescence, supporting a single flower." [B.Fl. i, 10.) 



a and b. Peduncle and Pedicel (not separately treated). 



Historical. 



Smith. 1793. Mueller.. 1879-84. 



Bentham. 1860. Naudin. 1883-91. 



Smith, 1793. — The terms " General flowering stalks " (for peduncles), and 

 " partial ones " (for pedicels), are used by Sir J. E. Smith in his description of E. obliqua 

 in 1793 (see Part II. p. 51, of this work), and such expressions were occasionally adopted 

 by .Mueller. 



Robert Brown-, 1810, in bis Prodromus, employed the terms peduncle and pedicel 

 (in their Latin equivalents). 



Bentham, 1866, it is hardly necessary to say. strictly adheres to the terms 

 peduncle and pedicel, as we should expect in such a master pf style. The following 

 are extracts from his " Flora Austrahensis " : — • 



Flowers large or small, in umbels nr heads, usually pedunculate, rarely reduced to a single sessile 

 flow.T. tli<- peduncles in most species solitary and axillary or lateral (by the abortion of the floral leaves), 

 '•iih'-r at the base of the year's shout below the leavei oral theendof the older shoot above them, . . . (iii> 

 l- ' 



The infl •' 'i liarat tcristic ot pccies or even of groups, but cannot always betaken 



The umbels air as a rule universal, but are always in a very few large- 

 flowered - ind occasionally in others, reduced to a ingle flower. The length of the peduncle 



supporting r abe Jut or compared to that "f the petiole, to which importance is given in tl Id 



diagn to be rarely available as a specific character. Rarely above 1 inch, generally varying 



from J to l in li. and sometimi entirety disappearing, it is only in the few rases where it is constantly 



