THE STRUCTURE OF THE FLOWER 



331 



make it easy for the wind to waft the fruits along and 

 so distribute them in new situations. There are two types of 

 floret, the outer or ray florets, which have strap-shaped corollas 

 arid no stamens, and the hermaphrodite disc florets, which have 

 a symmetrical corolla of five united petals and five epipetalous 

 stamens. The latter are syngenesious, 

 and form a hollow cylinder round the 

 style. The ovary, which contains a 

 single ovule, is prolonged into a slender 

 style, divided at the top into a bifid 

 stigma. One disc floret is represented 

 cut in half to show the stamens. 



The Buttercup, Pea, Saxifrage, and 

 Groundsel are all Dicotyledons. Text- 

 fig. XXX. shows the flower of the 

 Crocus, a Monocotyledon. Here the 

 perianth, which is epigynous, is not 

 differentiated into calyx and corolla, 

 but the segments are all alike and 

 coloured. The stamens are attached to 

 the perianth tube. The three carpels are 

 united and form the ovary and style, but 

 the curious funnel-shaped and toothed 

 stigmas are free from one another. 



Among the Monocotyledons we find 

 a great variety of flowers, showing 

 polypetaly, gamopetaly, and apetaly, and 

 also hypogyny and epigyny, precisely 

 as among the Dicotyledons. 



The arrangement of the flowers on the plant is by no 

 means haphazard. Sometimes the flowers arise singly, just as 

 leafy branches may occur, in the axils of the leaves. This 

 happens, for instance, in the Violets, but the fact is not obvious 

 at first sight, because the stem and the leaf bases are hidden away 



FIG. XXX. The Flower of 

 a Crocus. A typical Mo- 

 nocotyledonous Flower, 

 (natural order Iridacese). 

 Reduced. 



