PRACTICAL POLLENATION 



of all. The plants that adopted it might be said 

 to be the wisest of their race. 



The Typical Flower 



What may be regarded as the typical or perfect 

 flower, then, is one that contains both pollen- 

 bearing and pollen-receiving parts, surrounded 

 by the conspicuous insect signal that we term the 

 corolla; and having also a less conspicuous outer 

 shield termed a calyx. 



The calyx is the original shield about the 

 flower bud, and its function is over when the 

 flower opens. 



The botanist ordinarily speaks of the calyx as 

 a modified leaf. He refers to the petals of the 

 corolla as being also modified leaves or enlarged 

 and beautified modifications of the calyx. He 

 thinks of the stamens and the pistil as modified 

 petals; and he justifies this estimate by showing 

 that under cultivation it is often possible to trans- 

 form these essential organs into petals. 



Thus, for example, are produced such double 

 flowers as the cultivated rose and the chrysan- 

 themum. To the human eye, these are things 

 of beauty but from the standpoint of plant 

 economy they must be regarded as travesties of 

 flowers, since they are far less able and often 

 wholly incapable of producing seed. 



But it is perhaps a somewhat more philo- 



[85] 



