158 Flowers and their Pedigrees. 



plant effects by storing its seed with assorted food 

 stuffs for the sprouting embryo. 



In the more advanced or more degenerate sedges 

 we get still further differentiation for the special 

 function of wind-fertilisation. Take, as an example 

 of these most developed types on this line of develop- 

 ment, the common English group of carices (fig. 37). 

 In these, the flowers have absolutely lost all trace of 

 a perianth (that is to say, of the calyx and petals), for 

 they do not possess even the six diminutive bristles 

 which form the last relics of those organs in their 

 allies, the scirpus group. Each flower is either male 

 or female-^that i.s to say, it consists of stamens or 

 ovaries alone. The male flowers are represented by 

 a single scale or bract, inclosing three stamens ; and 

 in some species even the stamens are reduced to a 

 pair, so that all trace of the original trinary arrange- 

 ment is absolutely lost. The female flowers are 

 represented Tjy a single ovary, inclosed in a sort of 

 loose bag, which may perhaps be the final rudiment 

 of a tubular bell-shaped corolla like that of the 

 hyacinth. This ovary contains a single seed, but its 

 shape is often triangular, and it has usually three 

 stigmas or sensitive surfaces, thus dimly pointing 

 back to the three distinct cells of its lily-like ances- 

 tors, and the three separate ovaries of its still earlier 



