2i6 THE STORY OF PLANT LIFE 



The plants are herbs, shrubs, or trees. The leaves 

 are alternate, or opposite, entire, with stipules. 



The flowers are as a rule hermaphrodite, sometimes 

 polygamous with the parts regular, in fours or fives. 

 They are solitary in cymes, or heads. The perianth 

 is inferior, tubular, with a naked throat, or with 

 glands or staminodes. There are four to five lobes. 

 The receptacle is hollowed out forming a calyx-tube, 

 and the axis extends around the ovary. The calyx 

 is petaloid like the tube and overlapping in bud. 

 There is a conspicuous or small corolla, or it may be 

 absent. The stamens are as many as (or more than) 

 the outer perianth-segments, perigynous, included in 

 the tube. The anthers are two-celled, and burst 

 lengthwise. The stamens if equal to the perianth- 

 lobes are alternate with them. There is either no 

 disc, or if it is present, made up of scales or glands 

 which are hj^pogynous. The ovary is free, one-celled, 

 or rarely two-celled, with one pendulous ovule in each 

 loculus, the pistil being syncarpous. 



The style is simple, terminal or lateral. The 

 stigma is pin- headed. The fruit is an achene, berry, 

 or drupe, sometimes enclosed in the persistent 

 receptacle; or it may rarely be a capsule. The 

 seeds are pendulous with little or no endosperm. 

 The embryo is straight. 



The flowers contain honey at the base of the ovary. 

 The stigma and anthers are mature at the same 

 time. Flies are the chief agents in pollination in the 

 case of flowers with a short tube, bees pollinating 



