138 LESSONS WITH PLANTS 



have stamens. Figs. 136 and 137 are the soft 

 bodies which push out from the "pussy willows" 

 in spring. They are really masses of flowers. 

 They are branches, since they are borne in the 

 axil of a bract or scale. The cluster in Fig. 136 

 has members of a single kind, a; and these are 

 clearly pistils, since they bear an ovary and have 

 no pollen (no anthers). The cluster in Fig. 137 

 also has members of a single kind, &, but they 

 are unlike the members of Fig. 136. They are 

 stamens, as may be determined by the pollen and 

 the filaments, and the absence of ovary. In both 

 cases, the parts have no envelopes, but are borne 

 in the axil of a hairy or woolly scale ; and it 

 is this silky wool which gives the name of "pussy 

 willow" to the plant. Such flowers are said to be 

 imperfect, because they have only stamens or pis- 

 tils, in distinction to the perfect flowers, which 

 have both stamens and pistils. 



152. What, then, is a flower? In its lowest terms, 

 it is only a pistil or a stamen. 



152o. Since the flower may have two kinds o£ envelopes — and two 

 kinds of essential organs — it is commonly said that the complete flower 

 is one which has all of these parts, and an incomplete flower is one 

 in which one or more of the series is missing; but this is only a 

 method of stating one's habit of thinking about a flower, and it may 

 lead the beginner to think that there is some necessary or typical 

 plan of flower from which most flowers are deviations. It would be 

 better to drop the terms complete and incomplete, and to say that 



