136 Plants and their Ways in South Africa 



hermaphrodite. The willows and arums have neither calyx 

 nor corolla. A flower may be reduced to a single stamen or a 

 single pistil, as in Euphorbia. 

 A complete flower has — 



(i) Calyx, made up of sepals. 



(2) Corolla „ „ petals. 



(3) Stamens ,, ,, filaments and anther. 



(4) Pistil „ ,, ovary, style, and stigma. 

 A perfect flower has — 



(i) Stamens. 

 (2) Pistil. 

 Practise making out these whorls in flowers. Find other 

 flowers which are pistillate or staminate. 



Fig., 124. — Diagrammatic sections of ovaries : /. the placenta, to which 

 the seeds are attached. A, apocarpous ; B, C, D, syncarpous. (From Ed- 

 monds and Marloth's "Elementary Botany".) A. B, with parietal; C, D, 

 with axile placentation. 



Do not try to remember any of these names until you have 

 seen the parts themselves. 



Different Kinds of Pistils. — The long style of Hibiscus 



is necessary to bring the 

 stigma out beyond the 

 stamens. In some Or- 

 nithogalums and in Al- 

 buca the stigma sits 

 directly on the ovary. 

 The style is not in all 

 cases necessary to the 

 pistil. It depends upon 

 the shape of the flower. 



.^-^-s^-d 



Fig. 125. — I. Marginal placentation. II. 

 Unilocular ovary, with free central pla- 

 centa. (From Edmonds' "Elementary 

 Botany".) 



If a flower has two or more carpels, they generally grow 

 together. A syncarpous ovary may be one-, two-, three-, four-, 

 or many-celled (or uni-, bi-, tri-, quadri-, or plurilocular). 



