FLOWERS. 35 



Examples : — Olive, lilac, privet, native sarsaparilla, 1 fringe- 

 lily, and most grasses. 



Raceme. — A cluster of flowers resembling a spike, but 

 having distinct foot-stalks (pedicellate). Examples : — 

 Golden wattle, Berberis, Cape-broom, Deutzia, wallflower, 

 stock, mignonette, Aloe, cabbage and most cruciferoe 

 (erect racemes), and Wistaria (pendulous raceme). 



A raceme is sometimes compound. Example : —Privet 

 {Ligustrum vulgar e), flowers pedicellate. 



A scapose raceme has a long peduncle or naked flower- 

 stalk (scape) with one or more flowers terminating in 

 a tuft of bracts, and often with radical leaves at its 

 base. 



Corymb (sometimes compound). — A kind of raceme or 

 cluster in which the outer or lower stalks or peduncles are 

 longest, thus making the top of the flowers nearly or quite 

 level. Examples : — Cauliflower, native star of Bethlehem, 

 Victorian laurel, sweet-william, and hawthorn. An in- 

 florescence which sometimes grows into a raceme is often 

 corymbose in its early state, the wallfloiver for instance. 



Spadix. — A succulent or fleshy spike of incomplete 

 flowers, and contained within a sheathed spathe or bract. 

 Flowers unisexual or bisexual but on the same spadix. 

 Examples : — Nile or trumpet-lily, Caladium, Arum. Palms 

 generally have a branched spadix and spathe. 



Umbel. — Numerous stalked flowers issuing from one 



1 The true Australian sarsaparilla is Smilax glycyphylla, not Har- 

 denbergia monophylla, which is properly called spurious or Victorian 

 sarsaparilla. The root of the latter is reputed to possess properties 

 similar to those of the Smilax, but the idea is erroneous. The 

 Victorian sarsaparilla belongs to the order Leguminosae. The one is a 

 monocotyledon, the other a dicotyledon. 



