SENECIO VULGARIS. 245 



plume attached to the germen, and for this reason it answers to the 

 description of a superior calyx, and remains attached to the 

 mature seed. Instead of the term calyx for this part of the 

 flower, modern botanists have named it the " pappus." 



We now pass on to a description of the florets. These, as I 

 have said, are all tubular ; no strap-shaped ray-florets are found, as 

 in the daisy. Each floret is hermaphrodite, containing both pistil 

 and stamens. Much time and patience are required to open the 

 tubes, owing to their minute character, but unless this is done, it 

 is quite impossible to understand the structure of the reproductive 

 organs. 



The florets are monopetalous, each petal having five clefts, and 

 there are from fifty to sixty petals in the capitulum. Each floret 

 possesses five stamens and one pistil. The five stamens form 

 themselves into a tube within the corolla, through which the pistil 

 pushes forward its head. The stamens and filaments are quite 

 distinct, the latter growing from the base of the corolla, and the 

 former cohering with close embrace. 



The pollen-grains lie upon the inner faces of the stamens, and 

 as the pistil grows upward through the pollen-lined tube, the 

 grains of farina are pushed upwards towards the top of the corolla, 

 and when the pistil protrudes itself, the fine and delicate hairs with 

 which it is furnished are loaded with pollen-grains. By studying 

 the drawing (Fig. 8), the system of fertilisation in the Groundsel 

 may be readily understood. In floret A, the interior of the corolla 

 is laid bare, in order that the syngenesious character of the 

 stamens may be observed. The pistil, as it passes through the 

 tube of stamens, appears as a cylindrical organ with a hairy, thick- 

 ened summit. So soon as it has passed the tube, the summit 

 loaded with pollen separates into two parts, until, as in floret B, it 

 appears with two widely-extended arms, each one bearing at its 

 extremity a brush-like appendage studded with pollen-grains. In 

 floret C, the summit is still more advanced, and the poflen-grains at 

 the extremities have disappeared. But although we here have a 

 system of j'^Z/^-fertilisation in each plant, there is a wonderful sys- 

 tem of f;vj-jr-fertilisation carried on between the floret of each 

 capitulum. The pollen of floret A does not fertilise the pistil of 

 A^ and the like negation belongs to florets B and C; there is an 



s 



