THE COMPOSITE FAMILY 



65 



Fig. 67. — Spiral arrange- 

 ment of the leaves round 

 stems. 



form of a rosette. Bj this arrangement each leaf gets the largest 

 possible share of the sunlight. 



The . leaves bend down to the ground 

 with their pointed ends, so that the 7'ain 

 ivater falling on them is conducted outside. 

 With this arrangement the structure of the 

 roots stands in beautiful harmony. The 

 Sunflower plant being a tall herb, one 

 would expect the roots to be long and 

 strong so as to fix the plant firmly in the 

 ground. Eut this is not the case. The 

 side-roots are very short, and do not stretch 

 beyond the ends of the leaves. As a 

 compensation for this they are, however, 

 werj numerous and divided into so many 

 little branches that, if the plant is taken 

 out of the soil, the earth sticks together 



forming, with the roots, a compact mass which can be shaken off 

 only with much difficulty. The water that is drained off from 

 the centre to the circumference of the plant falls on the ends of 

 the roots just in the same way as we have seen in the Mango tree 

 (page 27), with one difference, namely, that, the leaves of the 

 Sunflower plant not being close together, the rain also pours 

 down within their circumference; consequently, we find that the 

 tiny sucking roots are not only arranged in a ring correspond- 

 ing to the outer circle of the leaf-ends, but that they are also 

 distributed all over w^ithin that circle. 



3. The stem and branches bear each on their tips one large 

 Flower, which turns its face towards the sun (hence the name). 

 If we cut vertically through such a "flower" (fig. 68), we can see 

 that there are really many small flow^ers placed on one receptacle 

 (R-)- The Avhole is, therefore, not one flower, but an aggregate of 

 flowers or a head oj flowers. Hence, the order to which the Sun- 

 flower belongs is called "composite". This bunch or head of 

 flowers is surrounded by several series of scaly leaves, imbricated 

 one above another and called bracts (B.), which protect the florets 

 under them when in bud. The florets are of two different kinds: 



