The Flower. 97 
154. Perfect, Monccious (mo-nc’-cious) and Dicecious 
(di-e’cious) Flowers. Flowers containing both stamens and 
pistils (or pistil), as in the apple, tomato, cabbage, etc., are 
called perfect or hermaphrodite (her-maph’-ro-dite) ; those con- 
taining but one of these organs as in the melon, Indian corn, 
etc., are called imperfect or unisexual (u’-ni-sex’-u-al).* 
Flowers of the latter class are called monwcious when the 
stamen-bearing (staminate (stam’-i-nate)) and pistil-bearing 
(pistillate (pis’-til-late)) flowers are both produced on the 
same individual plant, and d/ecious when produced on differ- 
ent plants only, as in the hop and date. In a few plants, as 
the strawberry (155) and asparagus, some individuals pro- 
duce perfect, and some imperfect flowers. 
155. Planting with Reference to Pollination is im- 
portant in certain plants. All diwcious plants (154) in- 
tended for seed or fruit must have staminate and pistillate 
plants growing near together or they will not be productive. 
The hop plant and date palm are of this class. 
The flowers of many 
of our most productive 
varieties of strawberry 
yield little or no pollen, 
and are unproductive 
unless growing near 
Fie. 54. Fie. 55. pollen-bearing sorts 
Fic. 54. Imperfect flower of the strawberry. ‘ 
Fic. 55. Perfect flower of same. The nu- (Figs. 54, 55). In many 
merous pistils appear in a circular mass at the varieties of American 
center, around which the stamens are seen in 7 E 
Fig. £5. plums, and in certain 
varieties of the pear, the pollen, even though produced 
freely, is infertile on stigmas of the same variety. Toinsure 
*The terms hermaphrodite, unisexual and bisexual, though often applied to 
flowers, are hardly accurate. 
