WAYSIDE WEEDS. 19 



oval, crowned by tlie thread-like styles. Observe, in 

 all thes^ cases, it rises from a little seat or recajptaxHe, 

 to wLicli are attached the petals and the stamens. " 

 You will not, however, have advanced far in 

 your botanical studies before you discover that this 

 single mode of attachment is by no means uni- 

 versal ; but one thing you will find constant, the 

 relative positions of the organs of the flower, which 

 we have just gone over. Petals, or corolla as the 

 petals are called collectively, stkmens and pistils, 

 are always placed in the same order, one within the 

 other. They may not all be present; in some 

 blossoms they are never all present together, but 

 you will never find stamens outside the petals, or 

 pistil outside the stamens. 



There remains yet, for examination, one other 

 part of the flower. Exterior to all the organs we 

 have hitherto described, you cannot fail to have 

 noticed a covering, or set of coverings, to which, 

 as it holds the blossom generally, botanists have 

 given the name of calyx, or flower-cup (Figs. 2, 3, 

 9, 16, 19, 20). This calyx, moreover, has its many 

 differences, even in the limited number of plants we 

 have as yet examined. It is divided, in most of our 

 examples, like the corolla, into separate pieces ; and 

 as the divisions of the corolla are named petals, so 

 are those of the calyx called sepals. Generally 

 speaking, the calyx, or flower-cup, is green, but we 

 see it. in the wallflower. (Fig. 7) more or less deeply 



