SUPPRESSION OR ABORTION. 



265 



ble.* An example of the kind is furnished hy Ceratiola (Ord. 

 Empetraceae), the sterile flowers of which consist merely of a 

 couple of stamens situated in the axil of a bract ; and the fertile, of 

 a pistil surrounded 

 by similar bracts. 

 In the Willow (Fig. 

 326 - 329), which 

 presents a more fa- 

 miliar illustration, 

 the sterile flowers 

 likewise consist of 

 two or three stamens 

 in the axil of bracts, 

 which form a catkin 

 (391) ; and the fer- 

 tile, of solitary pis- 

 tils also subtended 

 by bracts, and dis- 

 posed likewise in a 

 catkin. That is, the 

 flowers are not only 



wholly destitute of floral envelopes (unless a little glandular scale 

 on the upper side should be a rudimentary perianth of a single 

 piece), but in one set of blossoms the stamens are also suppressed, 

 and in another, the pistils. The pistillate flowers are reduced to a 

 single pistil. The stamens vary in number in different species, 

 from two to five. If there were only one of the latter, an instance 

 would be afforded of flowers reduced, not merely to one kind of 

 organ, but to a single organ. Now there is one species of Willow, 

 which appears to have a solitary stamen in its staminate flowers, 



* Except, perhaps, in what are called neutral flowers, such as those which 

 occupy the margin of the -cymes of several Viburnums and Hydrangeas, or 

 even the whole cluster in monstrous states, as in the Snowball or Guelder 

 Rose of the gardens (Viburnum Opulus), and the cultivated Hydrangea, which 

 consist of floral envelopes only, with sometimes mere rudiments of stamens or 

 pistils. Of the same kind are the neutral florets of Composite, such as the 

 marginal flowers, or rays, of the Sunflower. 



FIG. 32. A catkin of staminate flowers of Salix alba. 327. A single staminate flower de- 

 tached and enlarged (the bract turned from the eye). 328. A pistillate catkin of the same spe- 

 cies. 329. A detached pistillate flower, magnified. 



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