Polychasium
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The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.
Polychasium
a cymose inflorescence characteristic of some angiospermous plants. The main axis of a polychasium has more than two secondary axes below the apical flower, which grow longer than the main axis and end in flowers that bloom later. Some botanists make a distinction between polychasium (for example, in some Ranunculus), in which only secondary axes depart from the main axis, and a compound polychasium (for example, in elder and spurge), in which several tertiary axes depart from each secondary axis.
The Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 3rd Edition (1970-1979). © 2010 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.