68 PEOPAGATION- or PLANTS. 



Oats, Beech, Chestnut, Wahitit, and Hazel. Such plants 

 are called monoecious, because each produces but one 

 kind of sexual organs. In other plants the staminate 

 and pistillate flowers are produced by separate plants, as 

 in the Po£lars, BufEalo-Berry, Hop and Hemp, and in 

 some of the Maples. The flowers of such plants are said 

 to be dioecious, because the two different sexual organs 

 are borne by separate individual plants. There are also 

 species of plants distributed among various families and 

 genera, like certain species of the Grape, Ash, Maple, 

 Olive, and many of the Palms, which bear flowers, some 

 with pistils only, others with stamens, and some with 

 both kinds of organs in the same flower. Plants with 

 these variable flowers are said to he polygamous. 



In plants like the Asters, Gaillardias, Heleniums, and 

 the common Sunflower, the flowers are called compound, 

 being crowded together in a broad head; the position 

 and distribution of the sexual organs are variable {heter' 

 ogamous), some containing both stamens and pistils, 

 while others have neither, and are therefore neutral or 

 abortive, as often seen in the ray florets or outside rows 

 of showy petals in such flowers. 



But it is not my purpose to attempt to describe or even 

 note the many forms and the variability in the structure 

 of flowers, but merely to call the attention of the reader 

 to the fact that such variations not only exist, but require 

 close and careful investigation by persons who desire or 

 intend to become successful cultivators and propagators 

 of plants. It must be apparent to the most casual ob- 

 server that it would be perfectly useless to set out one 

 specimen of our native Buffalo Berry (Shepherdia), ex- 

 pecting it to produce fruit, for the sexual organs are in 

 separate plants, and the one bearing staminate flowers 

 never produces fruit under any circumstances, and the 

 plants bearing pistillate flowers will not bear, except in 

 the presence of the staminate; consequently, it is im- 



