^8 AUSTRALIAN BOTANY. 



j 



point, the stalks resembling the wires of a partly opened 

 umbrella. Umbels are either simple (one umbel) or 

 compound (several umbels in one flower). Examples : — 

 Simple umbels, cherry, scarlet geranium {Pelargonium). 

 Compound umbels : — Garden parsley, fennel, garden and 

 native celery, parsnip, carrot. 



Cyme. — Several branches rising from one point, in 

 umbels, racemes, or corymbs, the central flowers expanding 

 first. Examples : — Laurustinus {dichotomous cymes), common 

 and native elder, Chinese hawthorn or maybud. 



'When flowers are all on one side of the stem they are 

 said to be secund. "When the inflorescence becomes 

 pyramidal the word thyrse is applied. 



The various parts of a flower should be thoroughly 

 understood, since it is from the flower that the fruit, which 

 contains the seed, is produced. At the same time, it is 

 necessary to mention that flowers vary so much in their 

 construction and shape, that it would take volumes to give 

 anything like an exhaustive account of them. The first 

 thing to be acquired is a knowledge of their parts, and of 

 the purposes which those parts fulfil. Furnished with this 

 information the student can proceed to contrast one flower 

 with another. The several parts of a flower are shown in 

 Plates IV. and V. pp. 36, 37. The former shows the so- 

 called native Fuchsia; the latter, the garden or true Fuchsia. 



These two plants were selected for illustration for more 

 than one reason. It is too often the practice, in giving 

 common names to plants, to compare them — from some 

 real or fancied resemblance — to others widely differing from 

 them in construction. In Australia the names thus given 

 by the early settlers still cling to many plants, though they 



