62 



HOW PLANTS ARE PROPAGATED. 



184. A Spadix is a spike with small flowers crowded on a thick and fleshy body 

 or axis. Sweet-Flag and Indian-Turnip are common examples. In Indian-Tur- 

 nip (Fig. 147) the spadix bears flowers only near the 

 bottom, but is naked and club-shaped above. And it is 

 surrounded by a peculiar leaf or bract in the form of a 

 hood. 



185. Such a bract or leaf enwrapping a spike or 

 cluster of blossoms is named a Spathe. 



186. A set of bracts around a flower-cluster, such as 

 those around the base of the umbel in Fig. 144, is called 

 an Involucre. 



187. Any of these clusters may be compound. That 

 is, there may be racemes clustered in racemes, making 

 a compound raceme, or corymbs in 

 corymbs, or umbels in umbels, making 

 a compound umbel, as in Caraway 

 (Fig. 148), Parsnip, Parsley, and all 

 that family. The little umbels of a 

 compound umbel are called Umbel- 

 lets ; and their involucre, if they have 

 any, is called an Involucel. 



188. A Panicle is an irreg- 

 ularly branching compound 

 flower-cluster, such as would 

 be formed by a raceme with 

 its lower pedicels branched. 

 Fig. 149 shows a simple 

 panicle, the branches, or 

 what would be the pedicel-, 

 only once branched. A 



bunch of Grapes and the flower-cluster of Horsechestnut are 

 more compound panicles. A crowded compound panicle of this 

 sort has been called a Thyrse. 



189. A Cyme is the general name of flower-clusters of the p»nicie. 



kind in which a flower always terminates the stem or main peduncle, and each of 



Spadix and Spathe. 



