il8 Flowers and their Pedigrees. 



b}- the usual little yellow knobs representing the 

 stamen3 and pistil. Each goose-grass plant produces 

 many hundreds of such flowers, 

 springing in small loose bunches 

 from the axils of the leaves. \M'iat 

 we have to consider now is the 

 origin and meaning of the parts 

 Fig. 26.— Single flower which make them up. 



of Cleavers. 



We have already seen in deal- 

 ing with the daisy that the really important organs 

 of the blossom are the little central yellow knobs, 

 which do all the active work of fertilising the 

 ovary and producing the seeds. The stamens, as 

 we then observed, manufacture the pollen, and 

 when the pistil is impregnated with a grain of 

 this golden dust the fruit begins to swell and 

 ripen. But the corolla or coloured frill around the 

 central organs, which alone is what we call a flower 

 in ordinary parlance, shows that the goose-grass is 

 one of those plants which owe their fertilisation to 

 the friendly aid of insects. Blossoms of this sort 

 usually seek to attract the obsequious bee or the 

 thirsty butterfly by a drop of honey in their nectaries, 

 supplemented by the advertising allurements of a 

 sweet perfume and a set of coloured petals. So much 

 knowledge about the functions of flowers in general 



