FLOWERS : THEIR FORMS AND KINDS. 



67 



Moniing- Glory, the Lilj (Fig. 1-12), and the Stonecrop (191), tliey will soon 

 learn to understand it in any or all of its diverse forms. The principal varieties 

 or special forms that occur among common plants "will be described under the 

 families, in the Flora which makes the Second Part of this book. There stu- 

 dents will learn them in the easiest wav, as they happen to meet v;ith them in 

 collecting and analyzing plants. Here we will only notice the leading Kinds of 

 Variation in flowers, at the same time explaining some of the terms which are 

 used in describing them. 



201. Flowers consist of sepals, petals, stamens, and pistils. There may be few 

 or many of each of these in any particular flower ; these parts may be all separate, 

 as i\\Qy are in the Stonecrop ; or they may be grown 

 together, in every degree and in every conceivable 

 way ; or any one or more of the parts may be left 

 out, as it were, or wanting altogether in a particular 

 flower. And the parts of the same sort may be all 

 alike, or some may be larger or smaller than the 

 rest, or differently shaped. So that flowers may be 

 classified into several sorts, of which the following 

 are the jjrincipal. 



202. A Complete Flower is one wdiich has all the 

 four parts, namely, calyx, corolla, stamens, and pis- 

 tils. This is the case in all the flowers Ave have 

 yet taken for examples ; also in Trillium (Fig. 138, 

 reduced in size, and here in Fig. 1G2, with the 

 blossom of the size of life, and spread open flat). 



203. A Perfect Flower is one which has both sta- 

 mens and pistils. A complete flower is of course a 

 perfect one ; but many flowers are perfect and not 

 complete ; as in Fig. 163, 164. 



204. An Incomplete Flower is one which wants at 

 least one of the four kinds of organs. This may 

 happen in various ways. It may be 



Apetahus ; that is, having no petals. This is the 

 case in Anemony (Fig. 163), and Marsh-Marigold. For these have only one row 

 of flower-leaves, and that is a calyx. The petals which are here wanting appear 



Complete flower of Trillium. 



163 

 Incomplete flower of Anemony. 



