ORDER JEQUALIS. 161 



fords 1 seed ; and in Statice, or Sea-Lavender, 5 dis- 

 tinct styles are succeeded by only a simple seed, in 

 a valveless capsule. Yet in the order necessaria 

 of our present class, the maximum of all possible abor- 

 tion is attained in the discal florets ; for though to all 

 appearance as well formed as usual, they never 

 produce any perfect seed, and have indeed only the 

 rudiments of the caryops itself. The want of suffi- 

 cient space and nourishment appears here to be the 

 operative cause of this abortion, for the radial or ex- 

 ternal florets possessing room, and merely styles and 

 corollas, are amply fertile, and receive their pollen or 

 its influence from the discal abortive florets, whose 

 pistils perfect nothing. Abortion of a less obvious 

 and constant kind is prevalent in many of the peren- 

 nial plants of this class ; for amongst thousands of 

 Aster, Solidago, and Gnaphalium flowers, and many 

 others, scarcely any seed is ever perfected. The sap, 

 immediately after the late period of flowering, ceasing 

 sufficiently to ascend the stem, appears principally 

 engaged and retained in the warmer bosom of the 

 earth to circulate in the root and numerous shoots 

 which it now produces. 



THE ORDER iEQ,UALIS. 



In the first order, termed jequalis, the flowers are 

 all equally perfect, or possessed of both stamens and 

 style ; but they are obviously divisible into 2 sections 

 from the form of the florets. In the first they are all 

 flat, ligulate, or strap-shaped ; in the second section 

 ihe florets are all tubular or uncloven, for the flat flo- 

 rets are certainly nothing more than florets laid open, 

 and thus putting on the unusual appearance of single 

 petals, or half florets. We shall, as usual, commence 

 with the ligulate flowers of the order jequajlis. 

 14* 



