THE AMERICAN BOTANIST. 71 



cia, E. viscosa and R. hispida. In Gleditsia and Rohinia 

 there are a number of superposed buds only part of which 

 may be covered.—/. H. Schaffner in Ohio Naturalist. 



FLOWERS THAT ARE NOT FLOWERS. 



There is a great deal of difference between the botan- 

 ist's definition of a flower and the definition that holds 

 wath the general public. The former, of course, is correct 

 because his definition is exact, but the great army of flor- 

 ists, gardeners and flower-loving housewives persist in 

 clinging to their own ideas of what constitutes a flower. 

 Indeed, there is no reason why a word should not have 

 tw^o definitions, and the majority may, after all, be right 

 in its opinion. For the sake of a little diversion, ho^wever, 

 let us examine some of the cases in which botanist and 

 flower grower do not agree. 



We may start with the structures which are called 

 flowers by scientist and gardener, alike. Without going 

 much into details we will agree that a flower usually has 

 sepals, petals, stamens and pistils, and name as examples 

 buttercups, violets, orchids and such. The botanist is 

 willing to forego the petals and sepals, and still maintain 

 that he has a flower. The cultivator, however, will scarce- 

 ly agree to this unless pistils and stamens are brightly 

 colored, or otherwise conspicuous. But he often goes to 

 the other extreme, and includes with the flowers many 

 parts that do not belong to it and in this sense we speak 

 of his blossoms as flowers that are not flowers. 



One of the most familiar of these masquerading flow- 

 ers is borne by the dandelion. The golden hemisphere at 

 the top of the dandelion's hollow stem is really a cluster 

 of many flow^ers each one with five petals, one pistil and 

 five stamens, all of which are easily recognized. The petals 

 are joined side by side making a strap-shaped corolla; but 

 one who has any doubts as to their nature may examine 

 the center of a daisy or sunflower where he will find five 

 similar petals arranged in a regular tubular corolla. Even 

 the sepals are not missing from the dandelion blossom, 



