Flowers and Their Organs. 63 



make with the greatest economy * the best seeds, provided 

 with the best means of transportation, at the least expense 

 to the fields most fitted to their needs. 



Perhaps you have already learned that flowers produce 

 seeds. You have observed that something in the center of 

 a pea-blossom becomes a pod containing peas; that the cen- 

 terpiece of a peach-blossom becomes a peach, etc. But 

 probably you have never thought of the other and more 

 conspicuous parts of the flower as helpers in the work of 

 making seeds. Nor have you thought of the flower parts 

 as leaves changed in form and color to fit them for this 

 work so different from that of an ordinary leaf. 



Take one of the flowers which you have brought to 

 study. Note the number and shape of the outside leaves. 

 They are sepals. Next to the sepals are larger and more 

 showy leaves called petals. The slender stems with heads 

 are stamens and the centerpiece is called the pistil. The 

 flower then is made up of four kinds of organs, f If 

 you have a flower with the sepals all alike, and the petals all 

 alike, and not united, remove those organs. You have now 

 a fair view of the stamens. The head of a stamen is called 



* Wind-fertilized flowers are prodigal of pollen, while those most perfectly 

 fertilized by insects waste little or none. Burs get free transportation every- 

 where; berry seeds are carried by animals to their chosen fields. 



fThe leaves of each set may be united for a part or all of their length. In 

 eschscholtzia the two calyx leaves are completely united and the pair forming the 

 pistil are joined for part of their length. Two or more leaves of a set may be 

 united and the others distinct. In pea-blossoms nine stamens have the filaments 

 united for two-thirds of their length, and one is distinct, two of the petals are 

 united, and all the sepals. 



