Cultivated-Plant Study 631 



THE SUNFLOWER 

 Teacher's Story 



Many of the most beautiful of the autumn flowers belong to the 

 Compositae, a family of such complicated flower arrangement that it is 

 very difficult for the child or the beginner in botany to comprehend it ; 

 and yet, when once understood, the composite scheme is very simple and 

 beautiful, and is repeated over and over in flowers of very different 

 appearance. It is a plan of flower cooperation; there are many flowers 

 associated to form a single flower-head. Some of these, the "ray," or 

 "banner," flowers, hold out bright pennants to attract the attention of 

 insects; while the disk-flowers, which they surround, attend to the matter 

 of the pollenation and production of seed. 



The large garden sunflower is the teacher's ally to illustrate to the 

 children the story of the composites. Its florets are so large that it is like 

 a great wax model. And what could be more interesting than to watch 

 its beautiful inflorescence that orderly march toward the center in 

 double lines of anther columns, with phalanxes bearing the stigmas sur- 

 rounding them; and outside all, the ranks of ray-flowers flaunting their 

 flags to herald to the world this peaceful conquest of the sleeping, tented 

 buds at the center? 



Ordinarily, in nature-study we do not pull the flowers apart, as is 

 necessary in botany; in nature-study, all that we care to know of the 

 flower is what it does, and we can see that without dissection. But with 

 the compositae the situation is quite different. Here we have an assem- 

 blage of flowers, each individual doing its own work for the community ; 

 and in order to make the pupils understand this fact it is necessary to 

 study the individual florets. 



We begin with the study of one of the buds at the center of the flower- 

 head; this shows the white, immature seed below, and the closed, yellow 

 corolla-tube above. Within the corolla may be seen the brown anther- 

 tube; and on the upper part of the seed are two little, white, earlike 

 scales, to which especial notice should be directed, since in other compo- 

 sites there are many of these scales and they form the pappus the bal- 

 loon to carry the seed. The bud shows best the protecting chaffy scale 

 which enfolds the seed, its pointed, spine-edged tip being folded over the 

 young bud, as may be seen by examining carefully the center of a freshly 

 opened sunflower. In this tubular bud (see Fig. p. 632), there is a tele- 

 scopic arrangement of the organs, and one after another is pushed out. 

 First, the corolla-tube opens, starlike, with five pointed lobes, very pretty 

 and graceful, with a bulblike base; from this corolla pushes out the dark- 

 brown tube, made up of five anthers grown together. By opening the 

 corolla, we see the filaments of the stamens below the joined anthers. 

 This anther-tube, if examined through a lens, shows rows of tiny points 

 above and below, two to each anther, as if they had been opened like a 

 book to join edges with their neighbors. The anther-tube is closed at the 

 tip, making a five-sided cone; and at the seams, the yellow pollen bulges 

 out, in starlike rays. The pollen bulges out for good reason, for behind it 

 is the stigma, like a ramrod, pushing all before it in the tube for it is its 

 turn next to greet the outer world. The two stigma-lobes are pressed 

 together like the halves of a sharpened pencil, and they protrude through 

 the anther-tube as soon as all the pollen is safely pushed out; then the 



