42 BOOK OF THE CHRYSANTHEMUM 



purpose. Keep them growing out of doors until the 

 buds are formed and swelling, when they may be re- 

 moved to the warm end of a greenhouse, giving them 

 all the light and air possible. Give no stimulant in any 

 form. 



A little disbudding may be practised, leaving one 

 bloom to each growth. Try and arrange for blooms to 

 all expand about the same period. This will be a great 

 advantage in giving a better choice of flowers for 

 fertilising. Now supposing the blooms to have well 

 expanded, and they are considered in a fit state for 

 fertilisation, a little explanation is perhaps essential on 

 the formation of the flower and when in a fit state for 

 pollination. 



The flower is made up of two sets of florets termed 

 "florets of the ray" and "florets of the disc." Ray 

 florets consist of the extreme outside row of petals, 

 as one sees plainly in the single chrysanthemum, and is 

 made up of the female organs, the stigma and ovary, the 

 latter not always found in a fully matured form. Next 

 to the ray comes the disc floret, and this latter covers 

 the whole inside surface of the head or capitulum of the 

 flower, and the organs consist of both male and female, 

 being hermaphrodite in a sense. At the same time 

 nature has forestalled self-fertilisation by allowing the 

 male portion, the anthers which surround the stigma, to 

 throw their pollen first. The stigma does not open till 

 some days later to receive pollen, and rises above the 

 anthers. The florets all open from the outside edge first 

 and follow in, ring by ring, to the centre, the male 

 portions first and then the females, so that the former are 

 always ahead of the latter. If a bee or other insect 

 alighted on a flower it would usually do so on the edge, 

 and, crawling inwards to where the honey would be 

 secreted, would naturally pass over the open stigmas 

 before reaching the males, so that in going from flower 



