258 LrTHER BTTTT^AVK 



ThuB, for exaoiple, are pruaucca ^ucb douMc 

 flowm as the culti?ated rote, dahlia, and the 

 chrjtaotbemiuii. To the human eye, these an 

 things of beauty but from the standpoint of plant 

 economy they must be regarded as travesties of 

 flowers, sinoe they are far less able an^ '^^n 

 wholly incapable of producing seed. 



But it is perhaps a somewhat more philo- 

 sophical view of the flower to consider it as a 

 mechanism developed about the all-essential cen- 

 tral organ, the pistil. 



This, the female organ of the plant, consists, 

 in the developed form, of a basal structure, the 

 ovary, containing the ovules or embryo seeds, 

 and a more or less protuberant style at tli ■ ■ •• >f 

 which is the stigma that receives the fc. ig 



pollen. 



Considered as to its origin, the pistil is in 

 effect a modified bud. Everyone is aware 

 that individual buds of a plant may have the 

 property of being able to reproduce the entire 

 plant. The pistil is a modified bud each em- 

 hijo seed of wliicb, when fertilized, has the 

 same potentiality. 



By the most wonderful miracle of the organic 

 world, this infinitesimal structure is enabled to 

 epitomize all the possibilities of a future plant, 

 of predetermined size and form and habit. 



