128 ‘THE ROYAL FAMILIES 
er pod or berry, is one and indivisible, though it may ; 
contain many seeds. So of the Apple flower and the 
flower of the Oak, and in short of every other flower 
whatever, except those of these Asterids. These reverse 
this rule entirely. What appears as one simple blossom 
in the Sunflower is really an assemblage of several hun- 
dreds. Every seed produced in the autumn had its sep- 
arate and individual little flower, complete in all its parts 5.. 
for no one of these originates more than one seed, and 
besides, there are some at the centre that never ripen 
their seeds, and also a row of broad-leaved, showy yellow 
ones round the margin that form no seeds at all. 
Now these two features—the gathering together of 
many small flowers in one head, surrounded by a few 
green leaves, and the production by each flower of one 
seed and one only—these are two of the three marks that 
will identify this family everywhere. The third is rather 
more minute. In all perfect flowers, of every kind, there 
are two kinds of organs concerned in fertilization, and 
known as stamens and pistils. The latter always stand in — 
the centre of the flower, and however numerous they may — 
be, nothing is found interior to them. The stamens, 02 
the contrary, are always more or less in a circle, imme- — 
diately surrounding the pistils. A stamen consists, usual- | 
ly, of a knob more or less lengthened in its form, termed 
an anther, and borne on a thin stem called its filament. 
The reader need remember no more definitions just now- 
: ' third character of the Asterids then is, that in every 
their small flowers the five long anthers of as many 
mens sence ag round the one ney into a straight 
si pistil 
while the filaments, 
