328 Groom. — On Thismia Aseroe (Bee cart) 
one of the three scales forming an involucre beneath the 
terminal one : but there may be as many as three flowers 
in the inflorescence (Fig. 19). As is often the case with 
saprophytes devoid of chlorophyll, the general body of the 
plant is not white : in this instance it is pink. 
Morphology of the Flower . (Fig. 20.) 
The flower is orange-yellow in colour. The perianth 
forms a trumpet-like tube with six linear segments radiating 
from its summit like rays of a star. The six stamens are 
opposite the perianth-segments ; they are inserted on the 
perianth-tube near the top, and are partially shaded by the 
thickened rim of the tube. The stamens hang down, and 
their connectives are dilated and, continuing below the anthers, 
cohere to form a tube. In fact the stamens are fused except 
at their points of insertion and at the apices of the connectives. 
Thus a tube is formed lying within the perianth-tube and 
open at both ends. This staminal tube is perforated at the 
top by six window-like narrow openings which are the gaps 
between the separately inserted stamens. The structure of 
the stamens is complicated and requires full description. 
Their structure on the face towards the centre of the flower 
is simple ; they form a tube (with the above gaps) which 
has a plain surface merely rendered papillose by numerous 
blunt short hairs. This condition persists right down 
to the median free tooth which terminates the connective 
below. Looking through the tube from the inside not 
far below their point of attachment, the six anthers may be 
seen, and lower down, on radii alternating with the anthers, 
are six discoid opaque bodies — the nectaries. These last 
were seen and figured by Griffiths in T. Brnnonis , but their 
nature was not understood by him. Both the anthers and 
the nectaries open towards the exterior, not towards the 
centre of the tube. Hence the anthers are really introrse 
though they open away from the centre of the flower. The 
structure of the stamens on their outer faces is complex. 
