250 Flowers and their Pedigrees. 



in the wild English arum, the white ^Ethiopian lily 

 has a number of small greenish knobs, apparently 

 embedded in a golden yellow matrix ; at the top, the 

 whole of the spike consists of a similar golden-yellow 

 substance, which, at a certain period in the flowering 

 process, effloresces, so to speak, with a copious greasy 

 white dust, something like starch or wheaten flour. 

 But if we split down the spike itself through the 

 centre, we can soon find out what is the meaning 

 of this curious arrangement. The golden substance 

 which makes up the mass of the spike consists really 

 of innumerable yellow stamens, packed so tightly to- 

 gether over the whole stem, and so closely sessile (as 

 we call it technically) upon the central axis, that 

 they look like a single piece of homogeneous waxy 

 material. You can separate them from one another, 

 however, with your fingers, and then you see that 

 each one is roughly pentagonal or hexagonal in 

 outline, owing to the pressure of its surrounding 

 neighbours, and that it consists essentially of a small 

 pollen bag, containing a quantity of yellowish liquid. 

 When the stamens are quite ripe, this liquid assumes 

 the form of small white pollen grains, which are 

 pushed out as the bags open, and become the efflor- 

 escence or powder that covers the spike in its ripe 

 state. At the bottom of the spike, where we get the 



