CHAPTEE I. 



FLOWERS AND FLOWERING. 



Flowers and Flower-buds Inflorescence Definition of Flower 

 Essential and Non-essential Organs Stamens and Pollen 

 Carpels and Ovules Seeds Petals and Sepals Inflorescence- 

 Bracts Period of flowering List of trees and their flowering. 



All ordinary trees and shrubs, such as those here con- 

 cerned, attain at length to a period during which some of 

 the buds alter their characters, to the extent that the leat- 

 incepts formed on the flanks of the shoot-apex no longer 

 develope into typical foliage-leaves and bud-scales, but 

 into organs whose functions are more or less directly 

 adapted for the propagation of the species. Although 

 these organs are still, morphologically, leaves, and not- 

 withstanding the fact that their form, colouring, texture, 

 venation, &c., depart but little, or even not at all, from 

 those of green leaves, observation shows that they serve 

 in less and less degree the function of assimilation or 

 photo-synthesis, and are more and more especially adapted 

 to that of reproduction. 



The collection of such organs, at the end of the shoot, 

 is termed a Flowei'. In the bud-state, it is a Flower-bud ; 

 and the special branches of the shoot bearing such flower- 

 buds, or flowers, are known as the Inflorescence, or flowering 

 shoots. 



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