I2O 



Handbook of Nature-Study 



The blossom of the May apple. 



two parasols to shield it from the sun ; one of these twin parasols is always 

 larger than the other and evidently belongs to the main stem, since its 

 stem is stouter, and it is likely to have seven lobes while the smaller one 

 may have but five. However, the number of lobes varies. Neither of 

 these double parasols has its ribs extending out toward the other, and 

 thus interfering; instead of having their "sticks" at the center of the 

 parasol, they are at the side next each other, exactly as if the original 

 single stem had been split and the whole parasol had been torn in twain. 

 But of greatest interest is the blossom-baby carried under this double 

 parasol. At first it is a little, elongate, green ball on a rather stiff little 

 stem, which droops because it wants to and not because it has to, and 

 which arises just where the two branches fork. One of the strange things 

 about this precocious baby-bud is, that when the plant is just coming from 

 the ground, the bud pushes its head out from between the two folded 

 parasols, and takes a look at the world before it retires under its green 

 sunshade. As the bud unfolds, it looks as if it had three green sepals, 

 each keeping its cup form and soon falling off, as a little girl drops her hood 

 on a warm day; but each of these sepals, if examined, will be found to be 

 two instead of one; the outer is the outside of the green hood while the 

 inner is a soft, whitish membrane, 



"A rabbit skin, 

 To wrap the Baby Bunting in." 



As the greenish white petals spread out, they disclose a triangular mass of 

 yellow stamens grouped about the big seed-box, each side of the triangle 



