288 The Romance of Wild Flowers 
The species of Spurge are a puzzle to unscientific 
flower-lovers who may attempt to make out their 
floral structure. There are no petals and no sepals, 
and what appears to be the flower is really the in- 
florescence or cluster of flowers in an umbel. It is 
well worth while carefully considering this flower 
group, and one species is at hand all the summer for 
the purpose. This is the little Sun Spurge (/. 
helioscopia), which grows in shrubbery borders in 
the garden, as well as in the waste corners of fields. 
Its lower leaves are more or less red, but the upper 
leaves and the floral bracts are of a glaucous hue. 
At the tip of each shoot and branch there is a rosette 
of bracts, and in this will be found several smaller 
rosettes in whose centre is the flower-cluster. If 
this be picked out and looked at through a lens, the 
thing will be less puzzling. There is an involucre or 
general envelope enclosing four male flowers and one 
female flower. Along the margin of this involucre 
there are four more or less crescent-shaped glands, 
and these are commonly taken to be petals. Hach 
of the male flowers consists of a solitary stamen, and 
if this be carefully regarded it will be found that 
a joint exists about half-way up. This marks the 
division between the flower-stalk and the filament. 
The female flower is a comparatively huge globular 
ovary with very short stigmas, on a long curved stalk 
which brings it beside the group of male flowers 
instead of above them. Honey is freely exhibited 
on the flat disk around the stamens, and short-lipped 
insects can obtain it with ease. Flies, bees, and 
beetles share in the work of cross-fertilisation, but | 
this must take place in a rather uncertain kind of 
