84 



NATURAL HISTORY OF PLANTS. 



adherent ovary, while the perianth and androceum are inserted on 

 its outside. The calyx is quite inferior, composed of four imbricate 

 sepals. The petals are indefinite in number, imbricated, and 

 unequal, becoming more similar to stamens as they are higher up. 1 



Nymphcea alba. 



Fig. 93. 

 Flower (i). 



Fig. 94. 



Long. sect, of flower (perianth removed). 



The stamens, also indefinite in number, are free, with a filament 

 which is the broader and the more petaloid as it is the nearer the 

 corolla, and an introrse, basifixed, two-celled anther, of longitudinal 

 dehiscence. 2 The gynseceum consists of a large number of carpels, 3 

 emerging by their upper part from the receptacular sac, and forming 

 around a central, conical, or globular process of the receptacle a 

 style, whose branches cohere into a funnel, and each end by a fleshy 

 incurved head. In each cell of the ovary are found indefinite ovules, 

 arranged as in Nitphar. The fruit is a spongy berry, covered on the 

 outside by the scars of the perianth and androceum (fig. 95). 4 It 

 finally opens irregularly to free a large number of seeds, immersed 



1 " The corolla of Nympheea alba is composed 

 of the petals of the corolla proper, alternate with 

 the sepals, and of a large number of other petals, 



which are only metamorphosed stamens 



The flower of N. alba is therefore a double flower 

 in fullest sense of the word, but it is a normal 1 // 

 double flower, since it is not through cultivation 

 that it has become such" (Pater, loc. ciL, 270). 



2 The pollen is ovoidal, with a longitudinal 

 groove, and small spines in XT. alba ; hemi- 

 spherical, with a circular groove, in K. Lotus 

 (H. Mohl, in Ann. Sc. Nat., ser. 2, iii. 311). 



3 Often from twelve to twenty. 



4 It is surmounted by a sort of crown formed 

 of the indurated incurved stvlar branches. 



