Wild Flowers as They Grow 



Now, when we come to examine carefully the 

 flowers of several White Campion plants, we find 

 a remarkable fact : they are not all alike, though 

 at first sight they appear to be so. Each has a 

 strong, ten-ribbed calyx, inchned to stand out a little 

 from the petals. The petals are five in number, 

 quite separate one from another ; their long, thin 

 lower part forms a rough tube, and is supported 

 by the calyx ; above the calyx they spread out as 

 a ten-lobed silver disk. But, when we open the 

 flowers on one plant, we may find there are only 

 stamens within ; in the centre there is no seed-case, 

 and they seem hollow and incomplete. We pass on 

 to another plant and within is a substantial oval 

 seed-case, and spireading from it are five big up- 

 standing rays, but there are no stamens around it. 

 So we say the blossoms are incomplete, and that 

 one is a male flower and the other is a female flower, 

 in contradistinction to such flowers as the buttercup, 

 the foxglove or even the stitchwort, which is of its 



own family, the Caryophyllacea : these are complete, 



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