132 The Flower 



Sepals, Petals, Stamens, Pistil. Now write the name of each 

 flower in the first column, and after carefully dissecting the flower, 

 write the number of sepals, etc. in the columns to which they belong. 

 In the case of trees with two kinds of flowers do one of each kind. 



Lesson 2. FOLIAGE LEAVES AND FLOWER LEAVES. 



Season. Second week in June. 

 Materials required for each pupil. 



One wild rose. One garden rose. One fern leaf 

 with spores. Pine twig with male flowers and three 

 stages of cones. Pea pod and leaf. 



When we looked at the horse-chestnut flowers we 

 noticed that the sepals and petals were in some ways not 

 unlike leaves. The wild rose shows this likeness better 

 still, as the green sepals grow very long and branched 

 (Fig. 65). In the case of some flowers the stamens or 

 petals look exactly like leaves. This is seen in the case 

 of badly formed garden roses which, instead of being 

 made up of row within row of petals, have two or three 

 rows only of ordinary petals and a little bunch of green 

 leaves in the middle. These examples show that flowers 

 and leaves are not really very distantly related. It is 

 probable that a very long time ago in the history of 

 plant life there was much less distinction between them, 

 the only difference at first being that on some leaves 

 grew pollen and seeds. (This is still seen in ferns, which 

 bear no flowers at all, and, as I will show you directly, 

 in fir cones.) Later on some of the leaves began to be 

 folded up so as to form little boxes, some to hold the 

 pollen and others to hold the seed. In each generation 

 that followed these special pollen and seed bearing 



