28 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST. 



flowers being in shape like small leaves though far more 

 delicate in texture and usuall}^ of some other color than 

 green. Of all the organs they are least likely to vary from 

 the radical number. In five parted flowers the stamens 

 ma3^ be several times five and the pistils less than five, but 

 the petals are nearly always of the proper number. 



Taking a single petal it is not diflicidt to understand 

 how petals may have originated from leaves. There is an 

 expanded portion which corresponds to the leaf blade and 

 is called the lamina, and a more or less stalk-like base 

 which corresponds to the stern but which in petals is 

 called the claw. Like the filament of the stamen and the 

 style of the pistil this claw is often absent. Petals have 



man3' forms but possibh' a major- 

 ity have a shape that maj^ be des- 

 cribed as roughly- heart-shaped. 

 Such are found in the buttercup, 

 Forms of Petals geranium, violet, cinquefoil (fig. 13 

 a Nasturtium, b Cinquefoil, h) apple and rose. In the buttercup 

 c Catchfly. the outer margin lacks the notch of 



the heart, in the mallow the notch is very evident, while in 

 certain chick weeds and the pink family in general (fig 13 

 c) the notch is so deep that the petal is nearly cut in two, 

 and the beginner often imagines he has found a plant with 

 ten petals. Other petals may be linear, as in the witch 

 hazel; in fact Nature has aijout as many patterns for 

 petals as she has for leaves. In some flowers an added 

 beauty is given the petals by their being beautifully 

 fringed. The fringed gentian owes nearly all its popular- 

 ity to this, and the starry campion and mitrewort though 

 less known are equally well ornamented. 



Petals may increase by "doubling" as it is called until 

 we have such flowers as the cultivated rose, buttercup, 

 anemone and hollyhock. In such cases it is usually not a 

 real addition of more petals by the flower, but a trans- 

 formation of organs already existing, usually the sta- 

 mens. In completely double flowers both pistils and sta- 

 mens are absent, but in their places are petaloid objects 



