126 THE STORY OF THE PLANTS. 



know whether in this beHef my ideas would be 

 accepted by most modern botanists. 



As a first example of wind-fertilised flowers, I 

 will take the common dog's mercury, a well- 

 known English wayside flower, frequent in copses 

 and hedgerows, and one of the very earliest to 

 blossom in spring. In this species the males and 

 females grow on separate plants. They have 

 each a calyx of three sepals (two more being sup- 

 pressed, for they belong by origin to the fivefold 

 division). The males have ten or twelve stamens 

 apiece, which hang out freely with long stalks to 

 the breeze. The females have a two-chambered 

 ovary, with rudiments or relics of some two or 

 three stamens by its side, showing that they are 

 descended from earlier combined male-and-female 

 ancestors. The relics, however, consist of mere 

 empty stalks or filaments, without any pollen- 

 sacks. Of course there are no petals. Male and 

 female plants grow in little groups not far from 

 one another; and the pollen, which is dry and 

 dusty, is carried by the w^ind from the hanging 

 stamens of the males to the large and salient 

 stigma of the female flowers. 



A still better example of a wind-fertilised 

 blossom is afforded us by the common English 

 salad-burnet, a pretty little weed, very frequent 

 on close-cropped chalk downs (Fig. 27). Here 

 the individual flowers are extremely small, and 

 they are crowded into a sort of mop-like head at 

 the top of the stem. They have lost their petals, 

 which are now of no use to them; but they retain 

 a calyx of four sepals, to represent the original 

 five still found among their relations. For salad- 

 burnet, in spite of its inconspicuousness, belongs to 

 the family of the roses, and we can still trace in 



