50 



THE AMERICAN BOTANIST. 



ingand enough to make me wish to recommend it to other 

 amateurs like myself who have overlooked this part of the 

 study of plants. 



Orange, California. 



BOTANY FOR BEGINNERS— VI. 



MODIFICATIONS OF THE PETALS. 



Asa general thing the petals are the most conspicuous 

 parts of the flower, in fact their chief use seems to be to 

 attract as much attention as possible. To this end the3' 

 are usually brilliantly colored with flat expanded blades 

 that show off to the best advantage. But there are other 

 organs nominally petals that have little in common with 

 these, having taken on such strange forms that even the 

 young botanist would scarcely recognize them. 



Disguises of this kind seem to run in certain plant 

 families of which the crowfoot or buttercup family is a 

 striking example. Some members of it, like the buttercup, 

 marsh marigold (Ca/t/2a), anemone, clematis and hepatica 

 are guiltless of the habit but in their relatives, the lark- 

 spur, monk's-hood, columbine and others, it is very pro- 

 nounced. In the monk's-hood {Aconitum) the colored se- 

 pals are often taken for petals, for the latter are neither 

 conspicuous nor petal-like. Two of them are hood-shaped 



on long claws and function 

 asnectaries(fig. 14a.) While 

 the other three are so small 

 and narrow as to scarcely 

 be distinguished from the 

 stamens. In the gold-thread 

 (Coptis) the sepals are white 

 and petal-like, while the five 



-r, -,. XT ^ r "^1 f real petals have dwindled to 



Fig. 14. a Nectariferous petal of '- 



monk's-hood, /^sac-shaped petal of club-shaped organs that are 



Dutchman's breeches, c tubular and USUallj' mistaken for sta- 



nectar-bearing petal of columbine, mens. In the larkspur (Del- 

 phinium) the four petals are united into a spur, while in 

 the columbine (fig. 14 c) each petal forms a hollow horn 



