SOME SPRING FLOWERS 



and cross pollination. Finally, each 

 plant matures thousands of seeds 

 that can retain their vitality for 

 years. These are scattered far and 

 wide. 



You have noticed that mustard 

 flowers have four sepals, four petals, 

 six stamens and one pistil. There 

 are several other very common 

 little flowers that have their parts 

 in exactly the same numbers; see 

 how many you can find before we 

 take up the chapter on plant 

 families. 



There is a pretty spring flower, 

 Fig. 42, commonly known as the 

 primrose, which you might take to 

 belong to the mustard family. It 

 has four sepals and four petals, but 

 eight stamens, and its pistil is a 

 puzzle; it is easy to find the little 

 ball- like stigma and the slender 

 style, but no ovules are to be found 

 within the flower; they seem to be 

 in the stem, instead. Now what 

 holds the ovules must be the ovary, 

 so the apparent stem is really the 

 ovary, and it is called an inferior 

 ovary, because it is below the rest 

 of the flower. This primrose 

 appears rather early in the spring; 

 at first there are a few pale yellow 

 flowers close to the ground, in a 

 rosette of leaves; later on, numerous 

 branches spread out flat on the 



8 113 



Fig. 42. PRIMROSE CEno- 

 thera bistorta. 



