OUTLINES OF BOTANY. XXI 



bricated scales, bracts, or leaves, are said to be squarrose, when their tips are 

 pointed and very spreading or recnrved. 



59. Sometimes, however, most or all the leaves of the plant are reduced to 

 small scales, in which case they do not appear to perform any particular func- 

 tion. The name of scales is also given to any small broad scale-like appendages 

 or reduced organs, whether in the flower or any other part of the plant. 



60. Bracts (Bractece) are the upper leaves of a plant in flower (either all 

 those of the flowering branches, or only one or two immediately under the 

 flower), when different from the stem-leaves in size, shape, colour or arrange- 

 ment. They are generally much smaller and more sessile. They often partake 

 of the colour of the flower, although they very frequently also retain the green 

 colour of the leaves. When small, they are often called scales. 



61. Floral leaves or leafy bracts are generally the lower bracts or the upper 

 leaves at the base of the flowering branches, intermediate in size, shape, or ar- 

 rangement, between the stem -leaves and the upper bracts. 



62. Bracteoles are the one or two last bracts under each flower, when they 

 differ materially in size, shape, or arrangement from the other bracts. 



63. Stipules are leaf-like or scale-like appendages at the base of the leaf- 

 stalk, or on the node of the stem. When present there are generally two, one 

 on each side of the leaf, and they sometimes appear to protect the young leaf 

 before it is developed. They are however exceedingly variable in size and 

 appearance, sometimes exactly like the true leaves except that they have no 

 buds in their axils, or looking like the leaflets of a compound leaf, sometimes 

 apparently the only leaves of the plant ; generally small and narrow, sometimes 

 reduced to minute scales, spots, or scars, sometimes united into one opposite 

 the leaf, or more or less united with, or adnate to the petiole, or quite de- 

 tached from the leaf, and forming a ring or sheath round the stem in the axil 

 of the leaf. In a great number of plants they are entirely wanting. 



64. Stipellce, or secondary stipules, are similar organs, sometimes found on 

 compound leaves at the points where the leaflets are inserted. 



65. When scales, bracts, or stipules, or almost any part of the plant besides 

 leaves and flowers are stalked, they are said to be stipitate, from stipes, a stalk. 



§ 7. Inflorescence and its Bracts. 



66. The Inflorescence of a plant is the arrangement of the flowering 

 branches, and of the flowers upon them. An Inflorescence is a flowering 

 branch, or the flowering summit of a plant above the last stem-leaves, with its 

 branches, bracts, and flowers. 



67. A single flower, or an inflorescence, is terminal when at the summit of 

 a stem or leafy branch, axillary when in the axil of a stem-leaf, leaf-opposed 

 when opposite to a stem-leaf. The inflorescence of a plant is said to be terminal 

 or determinate when the main stem and principal branches end in a flower or 

 inflorescence (not in a leaf-bud), axillary or indeterminate when all the flowers 

 or inflorescences are axillary, the stem or branches ending in leaf-buds. 



68. A Peduncle 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 rliachis. 



69. A Scape or radical Peduncle is a leafless peduncle proceeding from the 

 stock, or from near the base of the stem, or apparently from the root itself. 



70. A pedicel is the last branch of an inflorescence, supporting a single 

 flower. 



71. The branches of inflorescences may be, like those of stems, opposite 



