30 UNISEXtTAL FLOWERS. 



direct part in the preparation of the seed, as proved, negatively, by 

 the circumstance of many flowers being devoid of them. The calyx 

 and corolla are, in fact, but elegant apparel, with which nature, in her 

 exquisite taste and delicacy, decks her favourites during the hours of 

 their hymeneals, keeping it folded in reserve till the energies of 

 stamen and pistil shall effervesce, and the poet's song of the loves of 

 the plants become no fable. The corolla fulfils its office in the most 

 beautiful manner. The petals are drawn together at the base, or 

 combined into a cup ; or, if unconnected, they close at night, and 

 when it rains, so as to form a tent, in every case tenderly shield- 

 ing the parts within ; and when the sun glows warm and bright, turn 

 towards it and spread wide open, that the life-giving flood shall pour 

 in abundantly, and be reflected from their surface, as by mirrors. 



Some plants have their stamens and pistils in different flowers, and 

 even upon different individuals. The analogy of the animal kingdom 

 gives to such the name of " unisexual," those where the two kinds of 

 organs are associated in the same blossom being called " bisexual." 

 Most of the unisexual have the two kinds of flowers differently formed. 

 The hop bears its stamens in large, light, branching clusters, but 

 its pistils in dense egg-like cones ; while in the nut and the oak 

 the former grow in pendulous catkins, and the pistils are enclosed in 

 buds. The finest examples of unisexual flowers are supplied by the 

 melon and cucumber family. Occasionally it happens that flowers 

 belonging to families properly bisexual, are, through incomplete 

 development, of only one sex, as in the common red lychnis of our 

 hedge-banks. 



The numbers of the several pieces of the calyx and corolla are very 

 important to notice. Most flowers have their parts in ^ves ; a second 

 class is constructed upon the number three, and a third has the parts 

 in even fours ; every number varying at times into its multiples, as 

 five into ten, three into six and nine, four into eight and two, and by 

 halving this again, into one. The stamens often greatly exceed ten, 

 as in the buttercup and the poppy ; the pistils also are occasionally 

 very numerous, again as in the buttercup, but in genci-al they are the 

 fewest parts of any, and in the majority of flowers there is but one, 

 though it may in reality be compounded of several. It seldom hap- 

 pens that the petals exceed ten. except in " double flowers," which 

 originate, under cultivation, and now and then in the wild state, in an 

 immense extra-development of the corolla, accompanied by an almost 

 total disappearance of the stamens. To learn the real nature of 



