270 



A TEXTBOOK OF BOTANY 



[Ch. VI, 2 



they ai-e rounded (as in the PeonyJ, or else elongated, or 

 otherwise shaped. Typically green like leaves, they some- 

 times assume both the color and shapes of the next inner 

 parts, the petals, as with Anemone and Four-o'clock. U,su- 

 ally persisting for a time in the opened flower, they some- 

 times fall off as it opens, as in Poppies. Commonly composed 

 of separate sepals (polysepalous), the calyx is often one 

 piece (gamosepalous), forming a saucer-, cup-, urn-, or tube- 

 shaped structure, from the sunnnit of which the free sepals 



project. Oftenest five 

 in number, the sepals 

 may be two, three, 

 foui', six, or more, in 

 lessening frec}uency. 

 The student may 

 easily confirm all of 

 these matters for him- 

 self, and extend them, 

 in any garden or green- 

 house. 



Next inside the 

 calyx comes the co- 

 rolla, formed, in the 

 Peony, of a whorl of 

 five brightly-colored 

 PETALS. CJollectively they open out in a way to display a disk 

 of color surrounding the sexual parts : and herein, as will later 

 appear, consists their function, — that of showing to insects 

 the position of those parts. The separate i)etals are here 

 broadest towards their tips, with narrow bases ; Init from 

 this typical condition there are wide deviations. The bases 

 are extended into greatly elongated stalks, as in Carnation ; 

 or their tips are pointed, elongated, cleft, fringeil, and vari- 

 ously formed, as the flowers of any greenhouse or garden il- 

 lustrate ; while the most remarkable spurs, hoods, and other 

 structures occur, as in I.arkspur and Columbine (Fig. 207). 



Fig. 1S3. — ,\ t>'ijir'al flower, of Pccouia 

 pcregrina ; X -i. 

 Some of the sepals and petals have been 

 removed in order to show clearly the stamens, 

 a, and the pistils, g. (From Strasburger.) 



