COMPOSITE 335 



HYDROPHYLAX MARITIMA, L., a creeping succulent 

 herb with round thick glabrous branches, and small 

 fleshy flowers, very common on sandy seashore of 

 South India. 



COMPOSITE 



Examples : 



HELIANTHUS ANNUUS, L., the common Sunflower. 



If we examine the flower of any of the many 

 varieties of this plant, we shall find on the outside at 

 the base, a number of lanceolate acute bracts imbri- 

 cated one above the other. Above them come the 

 yellow rays of the fkAver-head, while the middle or 

 disc of the flower-head is made up of a number of small 

 tubular flowers or florets as they are usually called. 



If we examine a large flowered kind, we shall see 

 quite clearly that the innermost central florets open 

 last, the outermost (those next the rays) first, and 

 that the first thing visible in the newly opened floret is 

 a dark brown cylindrical structure, tipped with yellow, 

 from which in a day or. two emerges the two-curled, 

 branches of a style. In the outermost of the disc 

 florets there may be only the two stylar branches. 

 The dark brown structure consists of five anthers 

 joined together, as can be easily made out in a still 

 unopened floret by splitting it open with a needle. 

 The filaments are free of each other, but united below 

 to the corolla tube, and each anther has at the top 

 a thin brown scale. Clasping each disc floret there 

 is a large pointed scale. 



The yellow rays are also florets, though differently 

 developed from those of the disc, for the corolla is 



