242 Introduction to Botany. 



anther consisting of two pollen sacs on its inner side facing 

 the pistil. Each stamen has at its apex an appendage 

 which consists of a thin, dry, yellow membrane having a 

 slight amount of elasticity. However, these appendages 

 do not merely lie side by side around the style as the 

 filaments do, but in part over one another, so that they 

 appear even more like a single body than the filaments do. 

 One sees that the appendages of the two lateral anthers 

 are covered by those of the upper and two lowest, and that 

 the appendage of one of the two lowest lies in part upon 

 that of the other. Thus the stamens, together with the 

 appendages, have the form of the upper conical part of a 

 funnel, from the lower opening of which the style sticks 

 out and at the same time completely fills and closes this 

 opening. The part of this funnel which is formed by the 

 filaments I propose to call the upper, and that formed by 

 the appendages the lower part. 



"The pollen revealed by the anthers after they have 

 opened is of a very peculiar kind, for while the pollen of 

 other nectar-bearing flowers clings somewhat firmly and is 

 of such a nature as to be comparable to rather moist flour, 

 that it may not be blown away by the wind or scattered 

 when the wind shakes the flowers, the pollen of the violet, 

 on the contrary, is completely dry and does not cling at all 

 to the pollen sacs after they have opened. It is thus like 

 the pollen of those flowers that are pollinated by the wind, 

 although this agent is not here employed. Still it is not 

 as fine as the latter and is more like flour than like actual 

 pollen. The two pollen sacs of each filament have a 

 prominent border at the upper end and on the sides, but 

 not at all below where the appendage begins. Thus the 

 dry pollen is hindered by nothing from falling from the 

 upper into the lower part of the funnel. That just this 



