48 REPRESENTATIVE PLANTS 



duction ? Shake a fully blossomed branch. What effect has 

 it on the pollen? AVhat natural agent might shake the 

 branch? "What then would become of the pollen? (Re- 

 ferred to later, so remember.) 



Pistillate, or Green Catkins 



Catkin. Examine a pistillate flower cluster (inflorescence). 

 What is its form and color ? 



Observe its general " make-up " and compare with the 

 staminate inflorescence in the matters of bracts, scales, and 

 scale peculiarities. How does it compare in size with the 

 staminate ? Draw natural size. 



Flower. Examine an individual flower (m). Find the 

 scale and observe that it bears a green, oblong, or spindle- 

 shaped structure, the pistil. Draw a flower {m). 



Pistil. Examine a pistil (m) and {Ip). Determine the 

 presence or absence of a short stalk or pedicel, attaching it 

 to the axis of the catkin. Observe the enlarged lower part, 

 the ovary or ovulary, often hairy, and the extreme tip, some- 

 what enlarged, the stigma. When the stigma is connected 

 to the ovary by an intervening part, commonly smaller, this 

 connection is the style. Is it found here ? Examine the 

 stigma (Ip). What peculiarities of surface do you find? 

 Draw the pistil (m) and {Ipj). 



Examine a ripened pistil (pod), and observe the tiny 

 seeds within. What is attached to the seeds and for what 

 purpose? (Seeds in the ovary before the process called 

 fertilization takes place are called ovules.) 



Pollination and fertilization. To produce seed in the 

 willow or any other flower two processes are necessary : 

 pollination and fertilization. Pollination is the transfer of 

 the pollen from the anther to the stigma. It is a general 

 rule among flowers that the pollen is carried by some agency 

 to the stigmas belonging to flowers of another plant of the 



