. Introduction to structural and systematic botany, and vegetable physiology. Botany. 210 THE INFLOKESCENCE. ment of the leaves governs the whole arrangement of the blossoms, as well as that of the branches. The almost endless variety of modes in which flowers are clustered upon the stem, many of them exhibiting the most graceful of natural forms, all implicitly follow the general law which has controlled the whole development of the vege- table from the beginning. We have, throughout, merely buds termi- nating the stem and branches, and buds from the axil of the leaves. 379. The simplest kind
. Introduction to structural and systematic botany, and vegetable physiology. Botany. 210 THE INFLOKESCENCE. ment of the leaves governs the whole arrangement of the blossoms, as well as that of the branches. The almost endless variety of modes in which flowers are clustered upon the stem, many of them exhibiting the most graceful of natural forms, all implicitly follow the general law which has controlled the whole development of the vege- table from the beginning. We have, throughout, merely buds termi- nating the stem and branches, and buds from the axil of the leaves. 379. The simplest kind of inflorescence is, of course, that of a solitary flower, — a sin- '&&< »»^- gle flower-stalk bearing a single flower; as in Fig. 306 and Fig. 327. The flower is solitary in both these instances; but in the latter case it oc- cupies the summit of the stem, that is, it stands in the place of a terminal bud; in the former it arises from the axil of a leaf, or represents an axillaiy bud. These two cases exhibit, in their great- est simplicity, the two plans of inflorescence, to one or the other of which all flower-clusters belong. 380. We begin with the second of these plans ; in which the flowers all spring from axillai'y buds ; while the terminal bud, de- veloping as an ordinary branch, continues the stem or axis indefi- nitely. For the stem in such case may continue to elongate, and produce a flower in the axil of every leaf, until its powers are ex- hausted (Fig. 307). This gives rise, therefore, to what is called 381. Indefinite or Indeterminate Inflorescence. The primary axis is here never terminated by a flower; but the secondary axes (from axillary buds) are thus terminated. The various forms of indefi- nite inflorescence which in descriptive botany are distinguished by special names, as might be expected, run into one another through intermediate gradations. In nature they are not so absolutely fixed as in our wi'itten definitions ; and whether this or th
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