60 The Romance of Wild Flowers 
stalks. These flowers, though not greatly unlike 
certain Potentillas at a superficial glance, will be 
found to differ considerably on closer examination. 
We saw in the Rose family a great tendency to vary 
in the direction of size, consistency of stem, form 
of leaf, and so forth, but very few departures from 
the regular five- parted calyx and corolla. The 
Ranunculus family 1s also conformable in the main to 
this pentamerous arrangement, as 
~ it is called, but we shall find all 
’ sorts of departures from it, so that 
one commencing the study of 
botany may well be puzzled for 
a time by the apparent chaos of 
arrangement. Celandine would be 
regarded by most botanists as a 
bad example to select as a type of 
the family, but it is a good type 
at least in the sense that it exhibits the erratic 
tendencies of the group. It should have five sepals, 
but usually there are only three, sometimes four 
or five; it should have five or ten (5 x 2) petals, 
but usually they are seven, and may be any number 
up to twelve, or, as sometimes happens, they may be 
entirely wanting. 
The petals narrow to their base, where there is a 
honey-gland. There are many stamens (A) of varying 
number, and the smooth carpels form a globular head. | 
Most of the stamens shed their pollen before the 
stigmas (ST) are ripe, so that the bulk of the pollen 
is intended for the fertilisation of other flowers with 
the aid of the numerous flies, beetles, bees, and other 
insects that come after honey or pollen. As the 
Section of Celandine 
