THE LIVING WORLD 213 



such flowers being a perfect or more or less imperfect 

 flower in itself, on which account such plants are termed 

 composite. 



In such a flower as the buttercup there is no single 

 body for a pistil, as in the bean, but instead of it there 

 is a number of independent separate parts, each of 

 which is called a carpel, and has its stigma on its summit, 

 so that we might say there is a number of pistils, were 

 it not against the custom of botanists so to express the 

 fact. Very often various parts are suppressed, and 

 sometimes a flower may consist merely of a single 

 stamen or a single pistil. Such flowers are, of course, 

 of one sex only, and when a plant has such flowers 

 but bears both kinds as does the cucumber it is 

 said to be monoecious. In some plants, however, as 

 in the willow, each tree is of one sex, and bears only 

 male or only female flowers. Such a plant is termed 

 dicecious. 



For all further information about plants the reader is 

 referred to treatises on botany, as our remaining space 

 must be devoted to a brief notice of the structures and 

 functions found amongst animals. 



With respect to unicellular animals, little need be 

 said, because their structures and functions so little 

 exceed those of the lowest plants. It must suffice to say 

 that there is a large group called Rhizopods, because they 

 can protrude and detract either long or short, thick or 

 filamentary processes of their protoplasmic body-sub- 

 stance. The most beautiful of these are the marine 

 Radiolaria, the bodies of which often contain the most 

 wonderfully symmetrical and complex silicious skeletons. 

 There are also the Foraminifera, so called because their 

 processes pass out through minute holes in the calcareous 

 shells they form around their most simple bodies. We 



