130 
ORGANOGRAPHY. 
BOOK I. 
developement, so that, instead of being lengthened into a 
rachis, it forms a flattened area on which the flowers are 
arranged, it becomes what is called a receptacle; or, in the 
language of some botanists, the receptacle of the fiower {Jig.lA.) 
73 74 75 
When the receptacle is not fleshy, but is surrounded by an 
involucre, it is called the clinanthium (the thalamus of Tour- 
nefort), as in Compositae, or, in the language of Richard, 
phoranthium ; the former term is that generally adopted ; 
Lessing, however, calls it rachis. But if the receptacle is 
fleshy, and is not enclosed within an involucrum, as in Dor- 
stenia and Ficus {Jig. 74.), it is then called by Link Hypan- 
thodium ; the same writer formerly named it Amphanthium, a 
term now abandoned. With receptacles of this sort, which 
are depressed and distended branches, are not unfrequently 
confounded parts of a different nature, as in the Strawberry, 
the soft, succulent centre of which (fig. 75.) is evidently the 
growing point (see p. 56.), excessively enlarged, and bearing 
the carpels upon its surface. See Disk, further on. 
According to the different modes in which the inflorescence 
is arranged, it has received different names, the right applica- 
tion of which is of the first importance in descriptive botany. 
If flowers are sessile along a common axis, as in Plantago, the 
inflorescence is called a spike (epi, Fr.), (Jig. 77.) ; if they are 
pedicellate, under the same circumstances, they form a raceme 
{yrappe, Fr.), (Jig. 78.), as in the Hyacinth : the raceme and 
the spike differ, therefore, in nothing, except that the flowers 
