14 



A PATTERN PLANT. 



[SECTION 2. 



15. Blossoming. In Flax the flowers make their appearance at the 

 end of the stem and branches. The growth, which otherwise might con- 

 tinue them farther or indefinitely, now takes the form of blossom, and is 

 subservient to the production of seed. 



16. The Flower of Flax consists, first, of five small green leaves, 

 crowded into a circle: this is the Calyx, or flower-cup. When its sepa- 

 rate leaves are referred to they are called Sepals, a name which distin- 

 guishes them from foliage-leaves on the one hand, and from petals on the 

 other. Then come five delicate and colored leaves (in the Flax, blue), which 

 form the Corolla, and its leaves are Petals ; then a circle of organs, in 



which all likeness to leaves is lost, consisting of slender stalks with a knob 

 at summit, the Stamens; and lastly, in the centre, the rounded body, 

 which becomes a pod, surmounted by five slender or stalk-like bodies. 

 This, all together, is the Pistil. The lower part of it, which is to contain the 

 seeds, is the Ovary; the slender organs surmounting this are Styles; the 

 knob borne on the apex of each style is a Stigma. Going back to the sta- 

 mens, these are of two parts, viz. the stalk, called Filament, and the body 

 it bears, the Anther. Anthers are filled with Pollen, a powdery sub- 

 stance made up of minute grains. 



17- The pollen shed from the anthers when they open falls upon or is 

 conveyed to the stigmas ; then the pollen-grains set up a kind of growth (to 

 be discerned only by aid of a good microscope), which penetrates the style : 

 this growth takes the form of a thread more delicate than the finest spider's 

 web, and reaches the bodies which are 1o become seeds (Ovules they are 

 called until this change occurs) ; these, touched by this influence, are in- 

 cited to a new growth within, which becomes an embryo. So, as the ovary 

 ripens into the seed-pod or capsule (Fig. 1, etc.) containing seeds, each 

 seed enclosing a rudimentary new plantlet, the round of this vegetable 

 existence is completed. 



Fig. 9. Flax-flowers about natural size. 10. Section of a flower moderately 

 enlarged, showing a part of the petals and stamens, all five styles, and a section 

 of ovary with two ovules or rudimentary seeds. 



