PABTICULAB TVPJIS OP FLOWERS, CONTINUED 219 



pedicel, and the central object, 8, is a solitary 

 3-merous pistillate flower. The entire structure or 

 supposed flower, therefore, is a monoecious rein- 

 forced head. 



251a. This euphoi-bia is a eommon weed in many parts of the 

 country. It is an herb, growing two or three feet high in dry 

 soil. If this plant cannot be had, the pupil may find other spurges, 

 for they are common ; or he may ask a gardener for a plant of 

 poinsettia or for one of the thorny euphorbias of greenhouses; or 

 he may easily grow the variegated spurge, seeds of which are sold 

 under the name of "snow-on the -mountain." All the spurges have 



milky juice. The pupil should 

 make an earnest effort to ob- 

 tain some euphorbiaeeons flower 

 for dissection. The flowers of 

 the castor bean, although not in 

 involucrate heads, will be use- 

 ful in this cionneetion, for this 

 plant is one of the Euphorbia- 

 oesB. 



2516. The pupil may be asked 

 to explain the flowers of the 

 red or swamp maple in Fig. 211. 

 The picture may suggest an 

 euphorbiaceous type of flower, 

 but the pupil must not be misled 

 by appearances. These red flow- 

 ers of the maple are among the 

 very earliest flowers of spring, 

 Fio. 211. appearing while the branches' are 



Flowers of red maple. still bare of leaves. 



252. One of the most reduced of flowers, in 

 point of size, is that of the duckmeats, or lemnas. 

 These are minute plants (Fig. 212), ^comprising 



