Plant -Life in London Squares 75 



So much for the death of the extremities ; we have 

 now to see what happens to the individual flowers which 

 remain. These develop perfectly and in full colour, but when 

 the stage comes at which the petals ought to fall and the 

 seed-vessel to enlarge, the process fails. The seed-vessel is 

 there, but the seeds are unable to attract enough sap to grow ; 

 and as cessation of growth is in this instance equivalent to 

 death, the flower dies as a whole. It is possible that de- 

 ficiency of insects may have prevented fecundation. Still, we 

 have to ask, why should it fall off? The answer to this is, 

 that it is shed by a process of detachment which begins, not 

 in the dead flower, but in the living stem. It is one which 

 is similar to that of shedding leaves. There appear to be 

 two parts in the pedicle of the flower at which separation 

 may occur. It never occurs in the middle of the footstalk. 

 Either the flower may detach itself from its footstalk at 

 the junction of its calyx, or the footstalk itself may be 

 detached at its junction with the stem, with the flower still 

 fixed to it. The latter is much the more common. It leaves 

 the stem bare and simply rough with scars, whilst the 

 other leaves it covered with headless footstalks a third of 

 an inch long. It is a curious fact that no provision is 

 made for separation at both places in the same flower. If 

 you knock off a flower which is loosened at the junction of 

 its footstalk with the stem— and this may often be done by 

 the slightest touch — you will find that the dead flower will 

 not detach itself from its footstalk without violence and 

 tearing of the tissue. In this we have interesting proof that 

 the separation is accomplished by the living and not by 

 the dead, for the whole of the flower and its individual 

 footstalk are quite dead. 



A very important and interesting item in final proof that 

 vigorous vitality and not decay or rotting, is the agency by which 

 the separation of the non-living parts is effected, has yet to be 

 stated. In some instances the top of the flower-spike dies 

 and withers but remains firmly fixed. In the same stems it 



