ELEMENTS 0¥ STRUCTURAL 150TANY. 53 



vastly increased in size, and become a compact ball of 

 red berries. There can be no doubt, then, that we have 

 here a structure aualagous to that found in the Cucum- 

 ber and the Willow, the fertile, or pistillate, flowers 

 being clustered together separate!}'. But in the Cucum- 

 ber all the flowers were observed to be furnished with 

 calyx and corolla, and in the Willow catkins, though 

 floral envelopes were absent, each pair of stamens and 

 each pistil was subtended by a bract. In the present 

 plant there are no floral envelopes, nor does each pistil 

 arise from a separate bract. 



67. But, you will now ask, what is this sheathing 

 hood which we find wrapped about our column of 

 pistils '? There is no doubt that we must look upon it 

 as a brart, because from its base the flower-cluster 

 springs. So that, whilst the flowers of Indian-Turnip 

 are, like those of Willow, imperfect and dia?cious, the 

 clusters differ in having but a single bract instead of a 

 bract under each flower. 



68. We must now examine one of the other speci- 

 mens ; and we shall have no difticulty in determining 

 the nature of the bodies which, in this case, cover the 

 base of the column. They are evidently stamens, and 

 your magnifyiug-glass will show you that they consist 

 mostly of anthers, the filaments being extremely short, 

 and that some of the anthers are two-celled, and some 

 four-celled, all discharging their ix)llen through little 

 holes at the top of the cells. 



09. The column upon which, in plants hke Indian- 

 Turnip, the flowers are crowded, is known as a spadix, 

 and the surrounding bract as a spathe. 



You will observe that the leaves of this plant are tiet- 

 veiiied, as we found them in the Trillium. 



