STIPULES, BRACTS, AND SCALES. IOI 



colours as well as green, and they vary a good deal 

 in form. I dare say you know the plant with 

 strange looking purple or white things like long 

 clubs each more or less enclosed in a large loose 

 whitish kind of leaf. We used to call these plants 

 " lords and ladies." Let us see if we can find some 

 of them by the hedge side. If they are still young 

 and not opened out we will unwrap one or two, and 

 try to find the purple " lords " and the white " ladies." 

 They are the flowers and I will tell you more about 

 them presently. I want you to notice now the loose 

 sheath in which they stand ; it is a form of bract 

 and is called a spathe? You can see one of them 

 very well in the picture of these lords and ladies in 

 Fig. 153- 



Sometimes these flower bracts are stiff and hard 

 like scales. Here is a picture of one of the flowers 

 out of the pussy cat or catkin of the common hazel. 

 (Fig. IO4A.) It has only stamens and they are 

 with a scaly bract. In the same picture at B you can 

 see some more scaly bracts which belong to those 

 flowers of the hazel which have only a pistil and no 

 stamens. About these flowers also I will tell you 

 presently. Now notice only their scaly bracts. 



But sometimes these scaly flower bracts have special 

 names. For instance, look at the " flower of grass." 

 If we can find one in flower a spike of wheat or barley 



* From the Latin " spatha" a broad flat thin blade, the branch of a 

 palm tree. 



