210 WILD FLOWER FAMILIES 



the winter and sending up in spring the woolly 

 stems which bear upon their tips the inconspicu- 

 ous white blossoms. A glance at these shows 

 that they belong to the Composite family, in which 

 many tiny flow^ers are crowded together in a 

 single head, each stem bearing about five of these 

 heads. A little further study shows also that the 

 pollen-bearing and the seed-bearing flowers are 

 upon quite distinct plants. The bracts around the 

 base of each flower head are densely woolly like 

 the stems, and the flower heads themselves are 

 made dense by the erect pappus arising from each 

 floret. By cutting a vertical section of the pistil- 

 late blossom you can easily see, through the lens, 

 the little undeveloped achenes resting on the 

 receptacle, each bearing the many slender vertical 

 white hairs that make up the pappus, and the long 

 style which projects beyond the pappus and holds 

 the two-lobed stigma well away from them, so 

 that when the pollen-laden insects come to the 

 flowers the stigmas rather than the pappus receive 

 the pollen grains. 



The pollen-bearing flowers are borne in shorter, 

 broader heads than the seed-bearing ones. The 

 reddish or brownish anther tubes project beyond 

 the general whiteness of the head and are tipped 

 with the yellow pollen, so that these blossoms are 

 comparatively conspicuous. Their stems, how- 

 ever, are shorter than those of the others by sev- 



