50 



DOMESTIC BOTANY. 



caper families it is in the form of a slender peduncle, 

 and in the sacred bean it consists of a thick spongy body 

 bearing ovaries on its flat apex (fig. 8, d). Such kinds 

 of supports are called gynophore. 



Besides the above special organs some flowers have 

 supplementary ones that have received the name of nee- 

 taria, and embrace all irregular anomalous structures, 

 either in the form of an appendage, small knobs, glands, 

 or cavities ; as the globular heads seated on the foot- 

 stalks in Parnassia, or the cavities seen at the base 

 of the corolla of the crown imperial, or the little scale in 

 the inside of base of the petals of pile-wort, also the 

 hooked spur of the petals of columbine, and many other 

 such kinds of structure. 



Although many glands and cavities contain honey, 

 others do not, and on considering that a number of 

 flowers bear honey without any evident nectary, there- 

 fore many nectaries (so called) must be viewed as various 

 modifications of parts of the flower only. 



In many plants flowers are often imperfect, that is, 

 wanting one or more of the parts ; in some the stamens, 

 and in others pistils are absent^ in others the corolla, 

 and often also the calyx. But it must be understood 

 that stamens and pistils, together or separate, constitute 

 a flower, without either calyx or corolla. A flower with 

 stamens and pistils is called bisexual or hermaphrodite ; 

 ufiisexual when either the stamens (male organs) or 

 pistil (female) are alone present ; both may be in diff'erent 

 flowers on the same plant, or in flowers on separate plants 

 of the same species. When separate male and female 

 flowers are on the same plant they constitute the twenty- 

 first class of Linnaeus, called Monoscia, and when on 

 separate plants, the twenty- second class, Dioecia. This 



