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. 
188. 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 Compound umbel, 
bunch of Grapes and the flower-cluster of Horsechestnut 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 Panicle. 
kind in which a flower always terminates the stem or main peduncle, and each of 
147 
Spadix and Spathe. 
