Panicle
Botanical term for highly-branched flower clusters
In botany, a panicle is a much-branched inflorescence. Some authors distinguish it from a compound spike inflorescence, by requiring that the flowers (and fruit) be pedicellate (having a single stem per flower). The branches of a panicle are often racemes. A panicle may have determinate or indeterminate growth.
This type of inflorescence is largely characteristic of grasses, such as oat and crabgrass, as well as other plants such as pistachio and mamoncillo. Botanists use the term paniculate in two ways: "having a true panicle inflorescence" as well as "having an inflorescence with the form but not necessarily the structure of a panicle".
01Corymb
A corymb may have a paniculate branching structure, with the lower flowers having longer pedicels than the upper, thus giving a flattish top superficially resembling an umbel. Many species in the subfamily Amygdaloideae, such as hawthorns and rowans, produce their flowers in corymbs.
Sources and credits
This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Panicle”, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.
Images, from Wikimedia Commons:
- Inflorescences Panicle Kwiatostan Wiecha.svg by Unknown author, CC BY-SA 3.0
- Sorbus glabriuscula 2.jpg by MPF, CC BY-SA 4.0
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