i64 SOUTH AFRICAN FLOWERING PLANTS. 



770 genera in 13 tribes, scattered all over the world. 

 In South Africa there are 153 genera. 



The distinguishing features are in the flowers, called 

 florets, from their minute size, being clustered into 

 heads; but this alone is a not uncommon feature in 

 otlier plants, as in Bru'nia (Fig. 60). But the five 

 stamens, which are adherent to the tube of the corolla, 

 always have their anthers coherent into a little cylinder, 

 supported by the five free filaments. The style passes 

 freely up the middle of it. This condition of the 

 anthers is called syngenesious, a word meaning " grown 

 together." 



' The heads of florets always have numerous im- 

 bricated bracts below them, collectively called an 

 involucre (meaning a " wrapper "). In most of the 

 composites there are two kinds of florets in a head, 

 those forming the central disk, which have corollas 

 with a small five-toothed limb, and the florets on the 

 circumference, constituting the ray, with broad, strap- 

 shaped, or ligidate, corollas. Sometimes the entire head 

 is composed of one or other of these two kinds of 

 florets. 



Ger'bera. — Fig. 67, I. represents a head cut down 

 through the middle, showing bracts of the involucre 

 or the outside, the large ray florets at the back and 

 the disk florets in front. (II.) is a separate disk floret. 

 First notice the hairy inferior ovary. Upon it is the 

 pappits, or ring of hairs surrounding the corolla. This 



