164 ORGANIC METAMORPHOSIS OF LEAVES 



pointed out by the letter d. The pistils of the apple-blos- 

 som are somewhat different from the one figured here. 



Fig. 3. 



There are usually five pistils, with free styles and stigmas ; 

 the ovaries are, however, united; each contains two ovules, 

 surrounded by cartilaginous walls, forming what is called 

 the core of the apple, and the whole is inclosed in the fleshy 

 tube of the calyx, which, by subsequent enlargement, be- 

 comes the fruit. 



It is not the beauty and fragrance of apple-blossoms, so 

 much as the plan on which they are constructed, which is 

 the chief point of attraction about them. This terminal 

 rosette of sweet-scented, ornamental leaves, is, in reality, 

 nothing but the ordinary green leaves of the stem, whose 

 organization has been altered, and is most admirably 

 adapted to the discharge of a new and important function, 

 that of reproduction. For the mind is necessarily filled 

 with admiration at that matchless skill which thus, by a 

 modification in the same typical organ, the leaf, adapts it 

 to the exercise of the reproductive functions. " The con- 

 traction of a branch and its leaves forms a flower ; the dis- 

 integration of the internal tissue of a petal forms pollen ; 

 the folding inwards of a leaf constitutes a pistil ; and, 

 finally, the gorging of the pistil with a fluid, with which it 

 cannot part, produces a fruit."* 



The function exercised by the two outer sets of floral 



* Lindley's " Introduction to Botany." 



