OUTLINE OF STRUCTURAL BOTANY 3h 
perfection of the seed. In some cases the style appears to be 
wanting as in the case of the poppy in the flower of which the 
broad capital, the stigma, of which we are presently to speak, rests 
directly upon the globe-shaped ovary. 
Culminating the style as its terminal is a glandular, somewhat 
spongy appurtenance known as the stigma and which is destined 
to receive the pollen grains which must fertilize the ovules. This 
stigma is porous and the style is not as it appears from a super- 
ficial glance a solid column, but it encloses a canal or several canals 
leading to the ovary and through the pores of this stigma and 
through these canals of the style the pollen grains or the extensions 
of these grains find their way to the ovules. The stigma to a 
single style may be divided into several parts, for the style may 
branch at its summit into two or more divisions and on each of 
these divisions is found a stigma. 
THE STAMENS. 
The stamens, forming a ring outside the pistil and in some 
measure protective of it are designed as the source of supply of 
pollen grains. Like the pistil the stamens may assume various 
Fic. 45—A few forms of stamens—a, Anther; b, Filament. 
forms but the typical stamen arises as a filament terminated by 
an organ which appears to be differentiated from itself and to be 
attached to it, sometimes firmly and sometimes very slightly. at 
the end of the filament. This is the anther of which more will be 
said as we proceed. 
These stamen filaments are more or less numerous in different 
flowers but in one great class of flowering plants, the class in which 
the leaves are parallel veined or nearly so, (the lily family, the 
rushes, ete.) they are usually three in number or in multiples of 
three. In another great class which includes many of those plants 
with net veined leaves, the stamens are generally five or multiples 
of five, less frequently four. If we strip the petals from a flower 
of cranesbill geranium, so common in our woods in early spring, 
we shall find ten stamens alternately in two rows the filaments of 
