FOR THE PRODUCTION OF PERFECT SEEDS. 81 



present; or those principal and most important organs of fructifica- 

 tion, the stamens and seed-vessel, where the corolla is wanting. 



Corolla (from coronella, a little crown).— The corolla is that part 

 of the fructification which is universally admired on account of the 

 beautiful colours it displays and the fragrance it exhales. Like the 

 calyx, the corolla is not absolutely essential to the perfecting of the 



fiuit. 



Stamina (from araftuv, stamon, yarn or spun wool; a term 

 intended, most likely, to express the capillary, hair-like, or woolly 

 appearance of this part of the flower; or it may be derived from 

 Zrajurtcj stamines, erect pieces of wood).— The stamens, formerly 

 called the chives, vary in number, in different flowers, from one to 

 some hundreds. Their situation is internal with respect to the parts 

 we have been describing; external to the pistils, at least in simple 

 flowers ; and so it is in compound flowers of the class syngenesia, 

 inasmuch as concerns the florets of the disk (that part which is com- 

 monly of a yellow colour, as in daisy, camomile, &o), each separable 

 portion of which is a true and perfect flower, consisting of a tubular 

 corolla, divided at the top into five segments, five stamina, a pistillum, 

 and a perfect seed ; unless where nature sports, and changes the 

 fertilizing organs into strap-shaped petals, in which case the flower 

 becomes double and barren. 



The stamina are essential, there being no plant hitherto discovered, 

 after the most careful research, that is destitute of them, either in the 

 same flower with the pistils, or in a separate one of the same species. 

 A stamen commonly consists of two parts, the filament, filamentum, 

 and anther, antkera, the former being merely what supports the 

 latter, which is the only essential part. The filaments are thread?, 

 those taper bodies which usually are immediately within the flower- 

 leaves. These threads support the antherae (tips or summits), the 

 only essential parts of a stamen ; they are generally of a membranous 

 texture, consisting of two cells or cavities, bursting longitudinally at 

 their outer edges, as in the tulip, and then becoming so changed in 

 figure as scarcely to be recognised for the same plump and well- 

 defined bodies which formed the summit of the stamina. 



The pollen, farina or dust (from pelb, to drive away), is contained 

 in the anther, from which it is thrown out chiefly in warm dry 

 weather, when the coat of the latter contracts and bursts. The pollen, 



