22. IMPERFECT AND PERFECT FLOWERS. 



Illustrative material: Some perfect and some imperfect flowers of 

 the strawberry, squash, cucumber, melon, or pumpkin; an ear of 

 Indian corn. 



Imperfect Flowers. In Lesson 21, we learned that 

 pollen from the anthers of a flower must find its way to 

 the stigma before seeds can be produced. The pollen 

 need not come from the same flower that contains the 

 stigma. If it comes from any flower of the same kind, 

 it will answer. The flowers of some plants do not con- 

 tain both stamens and pistils, but some of the flowers 

 contain stamens only, and are called staminate; others 

 contain pistils only, and are called pistillate. Staminate 

 and pistillate flowers are called imperfect. In imperfect 

 flowers, the pollen that reaches the stigma always comes 

 from some other flower. 



Examples of Perfect and Imperfect Varieties Fig- 

 ure 53 shows two strawberry blossoms. Notice that 



flower A contains sta- 

 mens (S) and pistils 

 (P). This is a perfect 

 flower. Flower B, how- 

 ever, is imperfect 

 having pistils only. 

 Strawberry flowers like 



FIG. 53-" Strawberry blossoms; A, perfect; B wil1 not often ptt> 



duce fruit unless they 



B, imperfect (pistillate). 



receive pollen from some perfect flower like A. 



G. & M. Ag. 7. 97 



Some 



