INTRODUCTION 
there is one main axis or peduncle which bears lateral flowers or 
branches in succession from below upwards, the terminal or central 
flower being the last formed. As this axis may be either elongated or 
arrested, and the flowers may be either sessile or stalked, this gives us 
four main types — the spike, the raceme , the head or capitulum , and 
the umbel. The spike has an elongate axis and sessile flowers, as in 
most of our Orchids, though the green ovary below their flowers is 
often mistaken for a flower-stalk. The raceme has an elongate axis 
with stalked flowers, as in the Wild Hyacinth or Shepherd’s-purse. 
If the stalks of the lower flowers are longer so as to bring all 
the flowers nearly to a level and thus render them collectively more 
conspicuous, as in the Wallflower, it is termed a corymbose raceme. The 
head or capitulum has numerous sessile flowers, called Jlorets , on account 
of their small size, crowded together on the expanded apex of the 
arrested axis or peduncle, as in Scabious and in all the great Family 
Composite, such as Daisies, Thistles, and Dandelions. This inflorescence 
is commonly mistaken for a flower. The umbel has the main axis 
arrested but its flowers stalked, all the stalks radiating from a common 
centre, like the ribs of an umbrella, as in the Ivy. 
If an inflorescence is only once branched, as in the examples above 
cited, it is termed simple ; if more than once, compound. Thus in Wheat we 
have a compound spike , or spike of spikelets ; and in the Hemlocks and most 
other members of the Family Umbelliferce , a compound umbel or umbel of umbels. 
In cytnose or definite inflorescences, or cymes as they are termed 
collectively, the main axis terminates in a flower which is the first to open, 
secondary axes or branches being given off below it. Thus this first 
flower is terminal, or, in crowded inflorescences, central. If, as is often 
the case where the leaves are in opposite pairs, as in St. John’s-worts and 
Stitchworts, two branches originate below the terminal flower, each ending 
in a flower below which more branches originate, and so on, we have a 
bilateral cyme; but there are many other cases where the branching is 
unilateral and extremely complex. Where the flowers are crowded and 
nearly sessile, the centre one opening first, as in the wild Deptford Pink 
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