STAMENS. 85 



STAMENS 



As the last patches of snow disappear from the fields, the Snowdrop raises its 

 white bells, and the catkins of the Willow break through the bondage of their bud- 

 scales; in the copses likewise, where the wai-m Mai"ch sunbeams penetrate, the 

 Hazel begins to blossom and sheds its powder. These are the signs that spring is 

 coming, and that the long winter is over. For some time the flowers both of the 

 Snowdrop and Hazel have been ready — in the Snowdrop under ground, wrapped up 

 in sheathing leaves; in the Hazel on the twigs as short, cylindrical, dusky catkins. 

 With the advent of spring the catkins stretch and their crowded flowers are 

 separated, they becoming flexible and hang like golden tassels from the branches, 

 swaying in the wind and giving off" their clouds of dust. 



To this powder, long known to be connected with the fruiting of plants, the 

 name of flower-dust has been given. This term, suitable in so many cases, has been 

 used in others for a substance which, although corresponding in function to the 

 flower-dust of the Hazel, differs from it in appearance. The cells which take the form 

 of dust in the Hazel assume in other plants the fonn of sticky, viscous lumps, of 

 spindle-shaped masses or granulated bodies, to which the designation dust is quite 

 inappropriate. Wei-e the species of plants whose flowers do not produce dust but 

 few the term could stand, but when we find belonging to this category many of 

 the principal families of plants — ten thousand Composites, eight thousand Orchids, 

 five thousand Labiates, four thousand Rubiacese, three thousand PapilionacesB, and 

 thousands of Umbellifers, Rosaceas, Crucifers, &c.; that, roughly speaking, two- 

 thirds of Flowering Plants do not produce dust, it is evident that the term cannot 

 have a general application. Consequently, Botanists speak of Pollen and not 

 flower-dust. It is true this word simply means flour, and that its selection has 

 not been a very happy one. Still the term has entered into botanical terminology, 

 where it will remain. It is given to all those cells produced in the flowers of 

 Phanerogams, which contain the spermatoplasm. 



Pollen, then, consists of cells which contain spermatoplasm, and may be compared 

 to the antheridia of Cryptogams. A definite portion of the substance of certain 

 leaves of the floral axis is appropriated to the production of Pollen. These leaves, 

 known as Stamens, resemble the other leaves of the floral axis in that they are 

 inserted in whorls, or one above the other in a much-flattened spiral. Very few 

 species of plants possess only a single stamen in each flower. The majority of 

 flowers contain stamens arranged spirally or in whorls. As a rule stamens are 

 inserted according to the ^ or -| system (cf. vol. i. pp. 399, 400). In many cases 

 their number and insertion resembles that of the petals and carpels of the same 

 flower, though more frequently there is a diffei-ence. Thu.s, in the flowers of the 

 Tulip-tree (Liriodendron), whilst the perianth-leaves have a divergence of ^, the 

 stamens are arranged according to the ^ sj^stem. In Ranunculus the leaves of the 

 perianth are arranged on the f plan, the stamens on the ^; in Polygonum the 

 former on the f, the latter on the f system. 



