176 COMPOUND FLOWERS. 



But if j)lants with five stamens have their anthers united, with 

 no other resemblance to the Sjngenesious plants, they are re- 

 tained in the lifth class ; the violet and impatiens are examples 

 of this irregularity. This is an instance in which the artificial 

 arrangement is made to bend to 7iatural alliances. The term 

 coinjjouncl- flowers was formerly aj^plied to flowers crowded 

 together on the same recejptacle (rachis), and surrounded by a 

 set of bracts or scales, forming an involucrum. These flowers 

 have been distinguished into tubular, when the corolla of the 

 perfect flowers forms a regular flve-toothed tube ; and this 

 division is subdivided into flowers with heads discoid, and 

 heads radiate; the second division is composed of florets 

 where all are Ugulate or strap-shaped, perfect, and arranged 

 in a radiating head. The whole natural order is termed the 

 Comijositce, sometimes the Aster acem. 



258. The compound flowers (or Compositge, as now called) 

 begin to blossom in the latter part of summer, and are found 

 bordering upon the verge of winter. The dandelion is among 

 the earliest flowers of sj^ring, and one of the latest of autumn. 

 The daisy is found in almost every sj^ot which exliibits any 

 marks of fertility ; these are not single flowers, like the violet 

 or rose, but crowded clusters of little florets. The sun-flower 

 (Helianthus) is considered as a type of the natural order Coni- 

 2)0sitce, which is sometimes called the sunflower tribe. We 

 distinguish the sun-flower into two parts — the dish, which is 

 the middle of the flower, and supposed to have resemblance to 

 the middle or body of the sun ; the ray is the border of the 

 flower, or those florets which spread out from the disk, as rays 

 of light diverge from the sun. The inflorescence of the disk 

 florets is centrijpetal, or from the circumference toward the cen- 

 ter ; the florets gradually expand. On examining a tubular 

 disk floret, it is found to be perfect, containing one j^istil sur- 

 rounded by five stamens, forming by their united anthers a 

 tube around the pistil. The florets of the ray are called neutral, 

 having neither stamens nor pistils ; the circumstance of neutral 

 florets in the ray places the sun-flower in the order Frustranea, 

 of the class Syngenesia. 



259. A Clover blossom is a collection of many little flowers 

 united — but each little floret of the clover has its own calyx ; 

 there is no general calyx inclosing the whole, as in most of the 

 Syngenesious plants ; the anthers are separate, the filaments 

 connected at their sides, which circumstance, together with the 

 papilionaceous form of the corolla, places the clover in the 

 class Diadelphia. 



258. Compositae, when found in bloom ? — Describe the sun-flower, — 259. How does a clover blossom 

 difter from a compound tiower 1 



