=693. (2d) Shoots without foliage leaves.=—These are subterranean or aerial. Nearly all subterranean shoots have also aerial shoots, the latter being for the display of foliage leaves (foliage-shoots), and also for the display of flowers (flower-shoots). The subterranean kinds bear scale leaves, i.e., the leaves not having a light relation are reduced in size, being small, and they lack chlorophyll. Examples are found in Solomon’s seal, mandrake (fig. 413_a_), etc. Here the scale leaves are on the bud at the end of the underground stem from which the foliage shoot arises. Aerial shoots which lack foliage leaves are the dodder, Indian-pipe-plant, beech drops, etc. These plants are saprophytes or parasites (see Chapter IX). Deriving their carbohydrate food from other living plants, or from humus, they do not need green leaves. The leaves have, therefore, probably been reduced in size to mere scales, and accompanying this there has been a loss of the chlorophyll. Other interesting examples of aerial shoots without foliage leaves are the cacti where the stem has assumed the leaf function and the leaves have become reduced to mere spines. The various modifications which shoots have undergone accompanying a change in their leaf relation will be discussed under stems in Chapter XXXIX. =694. (3d) Floral shoots.=—The floral shoot is the part of the plant bearing the flower. As interpreted here it may consist of but a single flower with its stalk, as in Trillium, mandrake, etc., or of the clusters of flowers on special parts of the stem, termed flower clusters, as the _catkin_, _raceme_, _spike_, _umbel_, _head_, etc. In the floral shoot as thus interpreted there are several peculiarities to observe which distinguish it from the foliage shoot and adapt it to its life relations. The floral shoot in many respects is comparable to the foliage shoot, as seen from the following peculiarities: (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.