(1) It usually possesses, beside the flowers, small green leaves which are in fact foliage though they are very much reduced in size, because the function of the shoot as a foliage shoot is subordinated to the function of the floral shoot. These small leaves on the floral shoot are termed bracts.
(2) It may be (a) unbranched, when it would consist of a single flower, or (b) branched, when there would be several to many flowers in the flower cluster.
(3) The flower bud has the same origin on the shoot as the leaf bud; it is either terminal or axillary, or both.
(4) The members of the flower belong to the leaf series, i.e., they are leaves, but usually different in color from foliage leaves, because of the different life relation which they have to perform. Evidence of this is seen in the transition of sepals, petals, stamens, or pistils, to foliage leaves in many flowers, as in the pond lily, the abnormal forms of trillium, and many monstrosities in other flowers (see [Chapter XXXIV]).
(5) The position of the members of the flower on its axis, though usually more crowded, in many cases follows the same plan as the leaves on the stem.
The various kinds of floral shoots or flower clusters will be discussed in [Chapter XLII], on the Floral Shoot.
[II. Organization of Plant Tissues.]
695. A tissue is a group of cells of the same kind having a similar position and function. In large and bulky plants different kinds of tissue are necessary, not only because the work of the plant can be more economically performed by a division of labor, but also cells in the interior of the mass or at a distance from the source of the food could not be supplied with food and air unless there were specialized channels for conducting food and specialized tissue for support of the large plant body. In these two ways most of the higher plants differ from the simple ones. The tissues for conduction are sometimes called collectively the mestome, while tissues for mechanical support are called stereome. Division of labor has gone further also so that there are special tissues for absorption, assimilation, perception, reproduction, and the like. The tissues of plants are usually grouped into three systems: (1) The Fundamental System, (2) The Fibrovascular System, (3) The Epidermal System. Some of the principal tissues are as follows:
1. THE FUNDAMENTAL SYSTEM.
696. Parenchyma.—Tissue composed of thin-walled cells which in the normal state are living. Parenchyma forms the loose and spongy tissue in leaves, as well as the palisade tissue (see [Chapter IV]); the soft tissue in the cortex of root and stem ([Fig. 414]); as well as that of the pith, of the pith-rays or medullary rays of the stem; and is mixed in with the other elements of the vascular bundle where it is spoken of as wood parenchyma and bast parenchyma; and it also includes the undifferentiated tissue (meristem) in the growing tips of roots and shoots; also the “intrafascicular” cambium (i.e., between the bundles, some also include the cambium within the bundle).