Handbook of Nature-Study 



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77/<? flower of the sunflower-head enlarged. 



A floret of the sunflower in the bud-stage as it appears at the center of the 



sunflower. Note the protecting bract at the right, 

 A floret in earliest stage of blossoming. 

 A floret in the latest stage of bloom with the parts named 

 A ray or banner-flower. 



stigma-lobes separate, each curling backwards so as to offer a receptive 

 surface to welcome pollen grains from other florets, or even other sun- 

 flowers. In the process of curling back, they press the anther-tube down 

 into the corolla, and thus make the floret shorter than when in the pollen 

 stage. The banner-flower differs in many essentials from the perfect 

 florets of the disk. If we remove one from the flower-head, we find at its 

 base a seedlike portion, which is a mere pretense; it is shrunken, and 

 never can be a seed because it has connected with it no stigma to bring to 

 it the pollen. Nor does this flower have stamens nor a tubular corolla; 

 instead it has one great, petallike banner, many times longer and wider 

 than the corollas of the other flowers. All this flower has to do is to hold 

 its banner aloft as a sign to the world, especially the insect world, that 

 here is to be found pollen in plenty, and nectar for the probing. 



But more wonderful than the perfection of each floret is their arrange- 

 ment in the flower-head. Around the edge of the disk the banner-flowers, 

 in double or treble rank, flare wide their long petals like the rays of the 

 sun, making the sunflower a most striking object in the landscape. If 

 the sunflower has been open for several days, next to the ray-flowers will 

 be seen a circle of star-mouthed corollas from which both ripened pollen 

 and stigmas have disappeared, and the fertilized seeds below them are 

 attaining their growth. Next comes a two or three-ranked circle, where 

 the split, coiled-back stigma-lobes protrude from the anther-tubes; within 

 this circle may be two or three rows of florets, where pollen is being pushed 

 out in starry radiance; and within this ring there may be a circle where 

 the anther-tubes are still closed ; while at the center lie the buds, arranged 

 in exquisite pattern of circling radii, cut by radii circling in the opposite 

 direction; and at the very center the buds are covered with the green 

 spear-points of their bracts. I never look at the buds in the sunflower 

 without wondering if the study of their arrangement is not the basis of 

 much of the most exquisite decoration in Moorish architecture. To 



