

FLOWERS, THEIR STRUCTURE AND KINDS 



179 



has some connection with the abundant food supply. It is 

 evident, however, that this is a useful distribution of the flowers, 

 since the pistillate flowers, produce the seed, which makes a 

 greater drain of food from the corm than the mere production 

 of stamens and pollen would. Seed formation of the smaller 

 pistillate plants sometimes makes such a drain of food from 

 their smaller corm, that the ensuing year they change to stami- 

 nate plants. In fact the change from pistillate to staminate 



Fig- 134- 

 A group of jacks. 



plants can be demonstrated experimentally, by removing the 

 larger part of the corm with a knife during late summer or early 

 autumn, before the nature of the flowers for the coming year 

 has been fixed. It follows from all these facts that seedlings, 

 or offsets from the corm, when they flower for the first time 

 probably bear staminate flowers. In a few years, if they are 

 favorably situated so that the corm attains a suitable size, they 

 then bear pistillate flowers. 



286. The Jack-in-the-pulpit belongs to the arum family. 

 A number of species are grown in greenhouses for the orna- 



