444 



VII. INFLORESCENCE. 



A. ITS BRANCHING. 



(a) Peduncle. 



(b) Pedicel. 



(c) Receptacle. 



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

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



A fzlunde 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, I860. Naudin, 1883-91. 



Smith, 1793. — The terms " C4eneral 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 his 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 of style. The following 

 are extracts from his " Flora Australiensis " : — 



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

 flower, the peduncles in most species solitary and axillary or lateral (by the abortion of the floral leaves), 

 either at the base of the year's shoot below the leaves or at the end of the older shoot above them. . . . (iiij 

 186.) 



The inflorescence is often characteristic of species or even of groups, but cannot always be taken 

 absolutely in single specimens. The umbels are as a rule universal, but are always in a very few large- 

 flowered species, and occasionally in others, reduced to a single flower. The length of the peduncle 

 supporting it, either absolute or compared to that of the petiole, to which importance is given in the old 

 diagnose, appexrs to be rarely available as a specific character. Earely above 1 inch, generally varying 

 from J to f- inch, and sometimes entirely disappearing, it is only in the few cases where it i? constantly 



