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noticed that in some flowers of the Primrose there is a small 
spherical body, a little larger, perhaps, than a pin’s head, in 
the centre ; that in others this organ is invisible, and instead 
we have deeply hued yellow bodies, five in number, clustering 
together. These two varieties of the primrose are known 
respectively as pin centres and rose centres; the same peculiarity 
being observable in Cowslips and the garden Polyanthus. 
The rose centre is accounted the more handsome of the two 
and is cultivated to the exclusion of the pin centre. Now 
what are these organs? The little round body in the pin 
centred specimens is the stigma, i.e. the summit of the pisfz/, 
or seed-producing organ ; the ‘‘rose centres” present us with 
the anthers, or pollen-bearing organs at the summit of the 
stamens. But if you take a rose centred specimen and dissect 
it, you will find the pistil inside, but reduced to about half the 
length, thus allowing the stamens to tower above it. So if you 
dissect a pin centre you will find stamens below. Such are 
the facts to be gleaned by simple observation; what I have to 
say now will show what is to be learned by thought and careful 
scrutiny from these facts. You all know that no seed ever 
arrives at perfection without the pistil being fertilized by pollen 
scattered on it from the anthers. Now what follows from 
this? By the aid of the illustration I hope to make it plain. 
a 
We are indebted for the illustration to the courtesy of the Editor of 
the Field Quarterly. 
