190 
PHARMACEUTICAL BOTANY 
Polyadelphous, when there are several sets or branched bundles. 
Example: Orange. 
Syngenesious, when the anthers cohere. Example: Composites. 
Color of Stamens. —In most species the color of these organs is 
seldom pronounced owing to their delicate structure. It varies 
from greenish-yellow to yellow to white, through pink, pinkish-red, 
red, purple, purple-blue to blue. It is yellow, for instance, in Sassa¬ 
fras, Cucumber and Golden Club; greenish-yellow, yellow to red, in 
Maples; yellow-pink to pink and pinkish-red, in some Mallows; in 
Azalea amena the filaments are crimson-purple and the anthers, pur¬ 
ple-blue; in the genus Scilla both filaments and anthers are blue. 
Gross Structure and Histology of the Filament. —The filament 
may be cylindric as in the Rose, awl-shaped as in Tulip, flat and with 
a dilated base as in the Harebell, three-toothed as in Garlic, appen- 
diculate, when it bears an appendage as in Chcetostoma, Alyssum, etc. 
The filament is covered with a protective epidermis containing 
stomata. Beneath this is a soft, loose cellular tissue, the mesophyll, 
and in the center a small vascular bundle, the pathway of food from 
the floral axis to the anther. In some cases the single bundle may 
split into two or three bundle parts. 
Gross Structure and Histology of the Anther. —Each staminal leaf 
(microsporophyll) bears a special development or appendage as a 
rule on its extremity which is the anther or microsorus. This consists, 
fundamentally, of a median prolongation of the filament equal to the 
connective or placenta. This develops on either side a quantity of 
indusial tissue that grows out to form a covering substance that 
protects and carries two microsporangia on either side. An anther 
therefore consist of a median connectine or placenta, producing on 
either side two anther lobes or indusial expansions. Each anther lobe 
encloses two pollen sacs or microsporangia, which, in some cases, 
remain distinct up to the dehiscence (splitting open) of the anther. 
Thus in Butomus, the anthers show four pollen chambers up to the 
time of dehiscence. Again in various species of Lauracece, the 
anthers remain four lobed and dehisce by four recurved lids. But in 
the great majority of Angiosperms each pair of pollen sacs fuse before 
dehiscence, owing to the breaking down of the partition between 
them, and so, at that time, show two-celled anthers. Still more 
