76 WILD FLOWER PRESERVATION 



but, nevertheless, a separate flower. You 

 make a similar discovery on examining one of 

 the yellow objects you had thought to be 

 stamens. It also is a miniature flower in it- 

 self. The corolla is tubular, opening into five 

 lobes at the mouth and you can see the pistil 

 and the stamens within. 



The Robin's Plantain is a compound or com- 

 posite flower. It is a flower-colony, and we 

 speak of these flower-colonies as flower-heads. 



Having discovered something of what the 

 Robin's Plantain is and is not, it should now 

 be examined more perfectly. 



EXERCISE II. 



Cut off a flower-head, place it upside down 

 on the table and with a sharp penknife cut 

 down through the short length of stalk to the 

 apex of the yellow disc, so that you divide the 

 floral colony into halves, as in Plate III, Fig. 

 2. Clustering beneath the flower-head are 

 rings of leaf-like objects that resemble sepals. 

 They are not called the calyx, however, for that 

 term is reserved for the cup that preserves a 

 single flower. They are called bracts (Fig. 3) , 



