LUTHER BURBANK 



inasmuch as what would commonly be called a 

 single blossom — say a single daisy, or aster, or 

 dandelion, or thistle — ^is in reality made up of a 

 very large number of individual flowers grouped 

 together into a floral community, which adver- 

 tises its location to the insects by arranging a 

 single circle of petaloid colored emblems that do 

 service for the entire community. 



A Measure of Ecokomy 



The economy of this arrangement, in the matter 

 of saving of plant energy, is obvious. 



Flowers that have not adopted this system are 

 obliged to supply a colored advertising emblem 

 for each individual set of stamens and pistils. 

 These composite flowers make one such floral 

 emblem serve the purpose of scores or even 

 hundreds of flowers. 



Of course the floral community, even though 

 the individual flowers are very small, occupies 

 considerable room. It is necessary, therefore, to 

 provide a largish receptacle to hold the flowers, 

 and in particular to hold their seeds when 

 developed. The outside of this receptacle is 

 usually covered, for protection, by overlapping 

 series of scaly bracts or little leaves that form a 

 sort of armor. 



A glance at a sunflower will illustrate the plan 

 that has been pretty generally adopted in the 



[180] 



