HOW TO STUDY PLANT LIFE 79 



magnifying-glass. The wee corolla (Fig. 6) 

 has five petals united in a tube, except where 

 they divide at the mouth and, like the ray- 

 florets, is surrounded by a ring of hairs. On 

 cutting the floret open you will find that the 

 five stamens sit on the walls of this corolla tube 

 (Fig. 7), and as the edges of their anthers ad- 

 here they themselves form a tube. You must 

 take special notice of this, for it is a character- 

 istic of the Compositae, or Family of Compo- 

 site Plants. There is another family known 

 as Dipsacaceae (including the well-known 

 Teasel) which consists of compound flowers 

 with no such tube. 



We come now to the pistil, which (as you 

 have learnt from the Glossary) consists of 

 stigma, style, and ovary. I want you to look 

 first into an unripe floret. When the corolla 

 tube is cut open and examined under a micro- 

 scope it looks like the sketch at Fig. 8, Plate 

 III. Your glass may not show this so clearly 

 but you will distinguish the anthers clasping 

 the stigma. 



Now take a floret rather farther from the 

 center of the disc, but do not open it. The 



