Details of the Flowers

Abstract

Orchid flowers may be arranged on the plant in five different ways, as a simple spike, raceme or umbel, occasionally solitary and sometimes in a branching panicle, and these are described in detail below. There is usually a bract, a structure resembling a miniature leaf, at the point on the axis of the inflorescence where the pedicel of each flower is inserted. Below the flowers, the inflorescence is often ensheathed by larger bracts that do not support flowers, and this sterile portion of the inflorescence stalk is referred to as the peduncle.