146 
ORGANOGRAPHY. 
BOOK I 
3. Of Bracts. 
All the parts hitherto made the subject of inquiry are 
called organs of vegetation; their duty being exclusively to 
perform the nutritive parts of the vegetable economy. Those 
which are about to be mentioned are called organs of fructi- 
fication ; their office being to reproduce the species by a 
process in some respects analogous to that which takes place 
in the animal kingdom. The latter are, however, all modi- 
fications of the former, as will hereafter be seen, and as the 
subject of this division is in itself a kind of proof ; bracts not 
being exactly either organs of vegetation or reproduction, but 
between the two. 
Botanists call Bracts either the leaf from the axil of which 
a flower is developed, such as we find in Veronica agrestis; 
or else all those leaves which are found upon the inflo- 
rescence, and are situated between the true leaves and the 
calyx. There are, in reality, no exact limits between bracts 
and common leaves ; but in general the former may be known > 
by their situation immediately below the calyx, by their 
smaller size, difference of outline, colour, and other marks. 
They are often entire, however much the leaves may be 
divided ; frequently scariose, either wholly or in part ; some- 
times deciduous before the flowers expand; but rarely very 
much dilated, as in Origanum Dictamnus, and a few other 
plants. It is often more difficult to distinguish bracts from 
the sepals of a polyphyllous calyx than even from the leaves 
