THE STRUCTURE OF FLOWERS. 55 



ply protective, or, at all events, only auxiliary to the 

 main intent. Just as the calyx wraps up all that lies 

 interior to it, so do the petals enfold still more inte- 

 rior parts, those, namely, which are directly concerned 

 in preparing the seed, and which botanists call the 

 stamens and the pistil. The pistil is that slender column 

 in the very heart of the flower, which has for its ped- 

 estal the rudimentary seed-pod ; the stamens are the 

 delicate pillars which stand around it, every one of 

 them tipped with a little bead-like head. Both parts 

 vary considerably in number and size. Sometimes 

 there is but a single stamen ; sometimes there are not 

 less than five hundred stamens, as happens in the 

 Rose-of-Sharon. The same is the case with the pis- 

 tils, which vary in number from one, which is most 

 usual, up to a hundred or more, as in the strawberry. 

 These two sets of organs, by their cooperation, give 

 origin to the seed. The rudiment of the latter is con- 

 tained in the ovary, which forms the base of the pis- 

 til ; the stamens, for their part, discharge a fine pow- 

 der, called the pollen, which being received upon the 

 upper extremity of the pistil, thence has its virtue 

 conveyed downwards into the ovary, and so commu- 

 nicated to the potential seed. Unless this process be 

 effectuated, the rudiments of the seed undergo no 

 change. They never swell in the slightest degree, 

 remaining mere shells, and unless some portion of the 

 ovules become fertilized, the whole of the ovary gen- 



