THE INFLORESCENCE, AND THE FLOWER 



225 



The Buttercup shows a similar condition, but its sympodial character appears 

 in the flowering shoots of the single season. (Fig. 170, A.) In these cases 

 the leaves are alternate, so that each lateral branch is solitary. But if the 

 leaves which serve as. bracts in a cymose inflorescence are opposite, as they 

 commonly are in the Pink Family, and in many Gentians, the main axis will 

 bear two lateral branches at the same level. (Fig. 170, B.) The result is 



Fig. 171. 

 Inflorescence of Centaury : a dichasium. 

 (After Figuier.) 



Fig. 172. 



Inflorescence of Verbena ; ; 



spike. (After Figuier.) 



v/haX is cailed a. Dichasium (Fig. 171). The difl'erence depends here upon the 

 leaf-arrangement, but the method is the same as before ; and a number 

 of sympodia are the result, instead of only one. Various other Cs'mose in- 

 florescences are built up on fundamentally the same principle, but differing in 

 the orientation and succession of the bracts, and consequently of their 

 individual flowering branches, or pedicels. Examples are seen in the common 

 Reels; Rose, and in Echevena. 



The simplest Racemose, or Indefinite inflorescence is the Spike, where 

 flowers in an acropetal sequence are seated directly in the axils of the bracts 



B.B. P 



