The Daisy's Pcdis^rec. 



15 



petals, which alone arc what wc «jcncrall>' have in our 

 minds when we think of flowers, are comparatively 

 useless and inessential organs : a vast number of 

 rtowers have not j;ot them at all, and, in those which 

 have got them, their puri)ose is merel>' subsidiary and 

 supplementary to that of the little central spikes and 

 knobs. P'or the small yellow rosette consists of the 

 stamens and pistils — the 'essential floral organs,' as 



Fig. 4. — I^ngitiulina' section of Common Buttercup. 



botanists call them. A flower may be complete with 

 only a single stamen or a single pistil, apart from any 

 petals or other bright and conspicuous surroundings ; 

 and some of the simplest flowers do actually consist 

 of such separate parts alone : but without stamens 

 and pistils there can be no floner at all. The object 

 of the flower, indeed, is to produce fruit and seed, and 

 the pistil is the seed-vessel in its earliest form ; while 

 the stamen manufactures the pollen without which 



