220 STUDY OF COMMON PLANTS. 



See if you can find a description of this kind of inflores- 

 cence in any of the books of reference. Does it correspond 

 with that of any other family that you have studied ? 



Flower. 



I. Study the parts of the flower in order and describe 

 them. Note particularly 



1. The plan of the flower and whether it is strictly 



regular or not. 



2. The extent to which coalescence has taken place. 1 



3. Whether there is adnation of any parts. 



4. Form of calyx and corolla. 



5. Structure, position, and insertion of the stamens, and 



their mode of dehiscence. 



6. Number of carpels composing the ovary. State the 



evidence on which you have determined this. 



II. Construct a diagram. 



III. Determine whether there are any arrangements 

 favoring cross-fertilization, and whether self-fertilization 

 is possible. 2 



Note the persistence, for at least several hundred years, 

 of structures that under present circumstances are of little, 

 if any, use to the plant, but which if it were neglected by 

 man and allowed to run wild, might again be needed. 



RELATIONSHIP. 



I. With the potato compare other species of the same 

 genus, as far as these are procurable, also representatives of 

 other genera as Lycopersicum, Physalis, Nicandra, Lycium, 



1 Cf. Gray, Structural Botany, p. 179. 



2 Cf. Miiller, Fertilization of Flowers, p. 425. 



