GOURD FAMILY 



Hubbard Squash, CucUrbila pipo 

 var. maxima 



The easiest way to understand the flowers of the Gourd Family 

 is to study the blossoms of the Hubbard Squash or of the Pumpkin. 

 These are so nearly alike that it really does not matter which one 

 is used, but as the Squash is more hkely to be in the garden, its 

 flowers are the more available of the two. In these blossoms every 

 characteristic is, as it were, put into capitals. Every part of the 



flower is massive. The calyx is a 

 good-sized cup, upon which the 

 corolla sits. The great vase of 

 the corolla has a spread at the 

 summit of from three to five 

 inches. Its five lobes are veined 

 and frilled after the approved fam- 

 ily pattern, and in the bud they 

 come together in the character- 

 istic gourd way. 



Each stem bears two kinds of 

 flowers. There arises from the 

 base of one golden cup a golden club an inch and a quarter high, 

 with a short, smooth handle and a long corrugated body. The 

 short handle is made up of three filaments that have grown to- 

 gether, more or less perfectly. At the base there are usually two 

 openings, where the filaments have not entirely imited. These 

 openings allow the bees to put their tongues into the hollow be- 

 neath, which is stored with nectar. The corrugated body is the 

 anthers — ^three of them — so perfectly united that it is not easy to 

 tell where one begins and another ends, and the anther cells are 

 long, tortuous, bent, and doubled ridges. This is the staminate 

 flower; it produces pollen, invites the bees, is glorious for a morn- 

 ing, and passes away. The golden heart of the other cup has a 

 different inmate. The way is open down to the depths of the 

 calyx, or hollow receptacle, as later botanists regard it, and from 

 those depths arises a golden column bearing three hammer-headed 

 projections. These are the three two-lobed stigmas. At the base 

 of the column copious nectar exudes and the bees are simply mad 

 to obtain it. 



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