56 MYSTERIES OF THE FLOWERS 



GERANIUM 



(Dimorphic) 



are large enough to be 

 readily visible. But one 

 must examine a great 

 many flower-heads in or- 

 der to find the long-pis- 

 tilled variety. When I 

 first noticed the long, 

 conspicuous styles pro- 

 truding from certain flowers, I mistook them for 

 ripening seed-vessels, and was accordingly much 

 surprised to discover at their tips small stigmas, 

 five-parted and adhesive. These stigmas are held 

 nearly an inch above the group of short stamens. 

 If no other plants produced dimorphic flowers, we 

 might consider these long pistils as accidents, or 

 "sports," as they occur in very small numbers and 

 very irregularly, while the flowers with very short 

 pistils appear like quite normal flowers and, being 

 very numerous, seem to be the standard type, of 

 which the others are the exceptions. 



In the short-pistilled flowers I discovered con- 

 siderable self-fertilisation going on, w^hile in those 

 with the long pistils this would be impossible to 



occur. 



Partridge Berry 



This little plant, usually classed as dimorphic, 

 sometimes becomes dioecious through stamens in 



