104 
THE AMERICAN BOTANIST. 
The five portions of the persistent calyx are spreading; 
the five divisions of the corolla reflexed and deciduous. 
Within the floral envelopes is the ''crown" of five hood- 
like bodies, the ''nectaries" of Linnaeus. Each one of 
these contain an incurved horn. The stamens are five in 
number, united by their filaments into a tube, within 
which, finally, is the pistil. The anthers are adherent to 
the stigma and have two vertical cells, each cell or com- 
partment containing a pear-shaped pollinium or pollen- 
mass. "The two contiguous pollen-masses of adjacent 
anthers form pairs which hang by a slender prolongation 
of their summits Irom five cloven glands that grow on the 
angles of the stigma." The pollen-masses are removed by 
butterflies or other insects, often adhering to their heads 
and appearing like extra antennee. 
Every one knows the pods of the milkweed. In some 
species, like Asclepias verticillata, these are smooth, long, 
and tapering; in others, like A. cornuti, they are more 
ellipsoidal in shape and thickly beset with pointed tuber- 
cles. These are never resistant enough to be called actual 
prickles, though epidermic in origin. Given a range of 
species and the pods differ extremely as to size, and even 
position. Thus, while in A. cornuti they are "erect on 
deflexed pedicels," in others, like A. verticillata, they are 
strictly erect. 
In all cases the contained seeds are flat, brown in 
color, wing -margined or rimmed, and beautifully imbri- 
cated over each other, each seed held down like one of Blue 
Beard's wives — by its hair. This silky hair with which 
each seed islurnished arises from its top, forming an exqui- 
site fairy parachute to transport it through the air. This 
tuft of hairs or "coma" absolutely and neatly balances 
the seed. To the writer it was always a mystery that 
there should never be a mistake in the length of the hairs. 
The seed never wobbles in the air; it is plumb and true 
always. One never tires of setting these little balloons 
afloat. 
It is surprising how Nature will vary a type in the 
