62 
HOW PLANTS ARE PROPAGATED. 
184. A Spadix is a spike with small flowers crowded on a thick and fleshy body 
or axis. Sweet-Flag and Indian-Turnip are common examples. In Indian-Tur- 
nip (Fig. 147) the spadix bears flowers only near the 
bottom, but is naked and club-shaped above. And it is 
surrounded by a peculiar leaf or bract in the form of a 
hood. 
185. Such a bract or leaf enwrapping a spike or 
cluster of blossoms is named a Spathe. 
186. A set of bracts around a flower-cluster, such as 
those around the base of the umbel in Fig. 144, is called 
an Involucre. 
187. Any of these clusters may be compound. That 
is, there may be racemes clustered in racemes, making 
a compound raceme, or corymbs in 
corymbs, or umbels in umbels, making 
a compound umbel, as in Caraway 
(Fig. 148), Parsnip, Parsley, and all 
that family. The little umbels of a 
compound umbel are called Umbel- 
lets ; and their involucre, if they have 
any, is called an Involucel. 
A Panicle is an irreg- 
ularly branching compound 
flower-cluster, such as would 
be formed by a raceme with 
its lower pedicels branched. 
Fig. 149 shows a simple 
panicle, the branches, or 
what would be the pedicels, 
only once branched. A 
bunch of Grapes and the flower-cluster of Horseohestnut are 
more compound panicles. A crowded compound panicle of this 
sort has been called a Thyrse. 
189. A Cyme is the general name of flower-clusters of the 
kind in which a flower always terminates the stem or main peduncle, and each of 
147 
Spadix and Spathe. 
188. 
148 
Compound Umbel. 
