52 



is very short,, but the anther makes up for this by being 

 relatively long. 



This anther is of peculiar structure. It is shaped like 

 a slightly-bent club, and the surface, turned outwards, is 

 rather larger than that looking inwards. If you cut 

 through this anther and examine it with a magnifying- 

 glass, you will find it contains two pairs of tubes running 

 the length of the anthers ; an outer pair rather larger, 

 and an inner rather smaller. In these tubes lies the 

 pollen. This four -chambered condition is the primitive 

 form, and the anthers of nearly all flowers are four-celled 

 when very young, only in most at maturity the cells have 

 blended in pairs; in some, as in our Australian Heath 

 family, all four have coalesced to form a single sack. 

 But our Purple Heather retains the original four-celled 

 condition. At the top the anther is very much prolonged, 

 and is paler in colour. This elongation may be easily 

 observed to be a tube open at the top. The anthers do 

 not, as with most plants, split open at maturity, but the 

 pollen escapes through the tube at the top. This form 

 of the anthers has been used in suggesting a name for these 

 plants. The genus is called Tetratheca, which means four 

 cases or boxes. Four-cased anthers are not confined to 

 this genus, however. 



The pistil is a very small, simple-looking object. It is 

 oblong, and rather flat, and has a slender, simple style at 

 its top. The ovarian part of the pistil contains two cham- 

 bers, showing the organ to be made up of two blendod 

 carpels. In each chamber there is a single ovule suspended 

 from the top. In fruit the pistil does not alter much in 

 character; it only enlarges, and the walls become hard. 

 At maturity it splits along each edge to allow the solitary 

 seed to escape from each chamber. 



The prettiest of our Tetrathecas is T. ciliata, but untor- 

 tunately it is only found near the north coast. It has 

 relatively large flowers, and the leaves are placed four 

 together, at intervals. Our commonest is T. glandulosa, FO 

 named because the flat leaves are rough, with little gland 

 like asperities. It is very common even on dry hills. The 

 other plant may be considered variable, or to be composed 

 of two or three species, or united with the last, according 

 to the idea of each student. Its leaves are narrow, with 

 the margins bent back towards the centre, often somewhit 

 hairy, from which it received the name T. pilosa. This 

 plant on wet heaths and mountain plains is often much 

 dwarfed, and smaller in leaf and flower. 



