4 PARTS OF THE FLOWER [CH. 



As a rule it is not difficult to recognise the flower-buds, or 

 the buds containing inflorescences, by certain peculiarities 

 of size, shape, or colouring and other characters, even at 

 a time when the young organs within the buds are as 

 yet hardly shaped, or differentiated, in any way distinctive 

 from young leaf-incepts; but cases occur where appre- 

 ciative characters of difference are lacking, or almost 

 lacking, and the flower-buds resemble the leaf-buds so 

 closely that their fundamental morphological similarities 

 are manifest. 



Moreover, the flowers and inflorescences of different 

 trees and shrubs differ conspicuously in complexity, as we 

 shall see ; and the most general statement we can make to 

 cover all the cases is, that the flower is essentially a shoot- 

 axis bearing lateral appendages on or in which are bodies 

 containing the true reproductive organs. To these the 

 essential organs of the flower there may be added certain 

 more evidently foliar organs, which serve to cover in and pro- 

 tect the essential structures; but since such are not always 

 present they are termed the non-essential parts of the flower. 



The essential organs are the Stamens and the Carpels : 

 the former containing the powdery grains, which are 

 generally yellow and separate out like dust, known as 

 Pollen ; the latter bearing peculiar, usually more or less 

 rounded, bodies known as Ovules, which will eventually 

 ripen as the Seeds. 



No structure can properly be termed a flower that does 

 not consist of either one or more stamens, or of one or 

 more carpels ; though, as we shall see, the stamens and 

 carpels are not necessarily borne in the same flower or 

 inflorescence, or even on the same tree. 



The non- essential organs are protective or attractive, 

 and may be very elaborate structures indeed. In their 

 more typically developed forms they usually occur as an 



