234 COMPOUND FLOWERS. 



stamens being named the barren flower, as producing 

 no fruit in itself, and that with pistils the fertile one, 

 as bearing the seed. If this separation extends no 

 further than to different situations on the same indi- 

 vidual plant, Linnaeus calls such flowers monoid, mo- 

 iKBcious, as confined to one house or dwelling ; if the 

 barren and fertile flowers grow from two separate roots, 

 they are said to be dioici, dioecious. Some plants have 

 united flowers and separated ones in the same species, 

 either from one, two or three roots, and such are 

 called polygamous, as making a sort of compound 

 household. 



A Compound flower consists of numerous florets, 

 flosculi, all sessile on a common undivided Receptacle, 

 and inclosed in one contiguous Calyx or Perianthium. 

 It is also essential to this kind of flower that the An- 

 thers should be united into a cylinder, to which only 

 the genus Tussilago affords one or two exceptions, 

 and Kuhnia another; and moreover, that the stamens 

 should be five to each floret, Sigesbeckiajlosculosa of 

 L'Heritier, Stirp. Nov. t. 19, alone having but three. 

 The florets are always rnonopetalous and superior, 

 each standing on a solitary naked seed, or at least the 

 rudiments of one, though not always perfected. Some 

 Compound flowers consist of very few florets, as Humea 

 elegans, Exot. Bot. t. 1 , Prenanthes muralis, EngL 

 Bot. t. 457 ; others of many, as the Thistle, Daisy, 

 Sunflower, &c. The florets themselves are of two 

 kinds, ligulati, ligulate, shaped like a strap or ribband, 



