8 



HOW PLANTS GROW, 



16. The Pistils are the bodies in which the seeds are formed. They be- 

 long in the centre of the flower. The Morning-Glory has only one pistil: 

 this is shown, enlarged, in Fig. 8. The Rose and the Buttercup have a 

 great many. A pistil has three parts. At the bottom is the Ovary, which 

 becomes the seed-vessel. This is prolonged upwards into a slender body, 

 called the Style. And this bears a moist, generally somewhat enlarged por- 

 tion, with a naked roughish surface (not having any skin, like the rest), 

 called the Stigma. Upon this stigma some of the pollen, or powder from 

 the anthers, falls and sticks fast. And this somehow enables the pistils to 

 ripen seeds that will grow. 



17. Let us now look at a stamen and a pistil from one 

 of the flowers of a Lily (like those shown on a reduced 

 scale in Figures 1 and 2, on the first page), where all the 



parts are on a larger scale. Here is a Stamen (Fig. 9), with 

 its stalk or Filament, f, and its Anther, a, discharging its yel- 

 low dust or Pollen. And by its side is the Pistil (Fig. 

 10), with its Ovary, ov. ; and this tapering into a Style, 

 St. ; and on the top of this is the Stigma, stig. Now cut 

 the ovary through, and it will be found to contain young 

 seeds. Fig. 11 shows the ovary of Fig. 10 cut through 

 lengthwise and magnified by a common hand magnifying- 

 glass. Fig. 12 is the lower part of another one, cut in 

 two crosswise. The young seeds, or more correctly the 

 bodies which are to become seeds, are named Ovules. In the Lily these 

 are very numerous. In the Morning-Glory they are few, only six. 



18. These are all the parts of the flower, — all that any flower has. 

 But many flowers have not all these parts. Some have only one flower- 

 cup or one set of blossom-leaves. Lilies appear to have only one set. Some 

 have neither calyx nor corolla; some stamens have no filament, and some 

 pistils have no style : for the style and the filament are not necessary 

 parts, as the anther and the ovary and stigma are. These cases will all 

 be noticed when we come to study flowers more particularly. Mean- 

 while, please to commit to memory the names of the parts of the flower, 

 Calyx, Corolla, Stamens, and Pistils, and the parts of these also, and 

 learn to distinguish them in all the common blossoms you meet with, until 

 they are as familiar as root, stem, and leaves are to everybody. 



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