6^ 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[February, 
had of the California seedsmen. A few years 
ago Dr. Kellogg discovered another species, L. 
tffgantea, upon the islands off the coast of Cali¬ 
fornia, which, from the description, must be a 
fine plant; he sent seeds to eastern friends, 
bat no one, so far as we have learned, has suc¬ 
ceeded with it here, though it does well in 
the gardens of San Francisco. 
How Flowers are Fertilized. 
BY PROF. ASA GRAT. 
ARTICLE II.—“ COMPOUND FLOWERS.” 
Dandelions, Sunflowers, Thistles, and the like, 
are troublesome to very young botanists, who hard¬ 
ly know' what to make of them. They were equally 
troublesome to the old botanists of a hundred 
years ago and more. They tided over the difficulty 
by naming them “ compound flowers,” and the 
name still holds, more or less. But the botanist 
now-a-days brings the thing to a head, and, except 
in deference to an old fashion, would no more 
speak of a compound flower than lie would of a 
compound sheep. He will have you clearly to 
understand that it is a cluster of flowers, the green 
leaves around which may imitate a calyx, while 
some of the blossoms of the cluster, or all of them, 
may imitate petals, and so the whole look like a 
flower, and answer for a flower, for ornamental 
purposes—seem to be one, while it is really a multi¬ 
tude. It is a sortof U epliribmunum'' > • and now, 
that being understood, the question arises, what is 
the good of it ? Unions—national, individual, or 
of whatever sort—are for mutual advantage ; ami I 
am to show that this is true of such close unions 
as these, of many blossoms into what has often 
been taken for one. 
To make a fair start, we must begin where we 
left off in the first article, about Bell-flowers. The 
Bell-flowers, we found, have a way of discharging 
all the pollen of their anthers, and loading it upon 
the style, where bees can help themselves to it, and 
convey part of it to the stigmas of another blossom. 
And in the last one of the Bell-flowers illustrated, 
the anthers were united in a tube around the style, 
at first enclosing it; then, when the style had got 
its load of pollen, it lengthened below, and so 
pushed up the pollen-laden portion into sight, and 
where it is convenient for the bees. Now in “com¬ 
pound flowers,” almost exactly the same thing 
is done in almost the same way, but yet with 
a difference. 
Each one of the central flowers which fill the cen¬ 
ter of a White-weed or Sunflower, is much more 
like a Bell-flower, except in size, than would be 
supposed without a close inspection. To show 
what is meant, instead of a Sunflower or White- 
weed, I take something much less common, merely 
because it is now before me, and is of convenient 
to appearance, it might be a large yellow Coreopsis, 
the difference being only one particular, which will 
be mentioned presently. Fig. 1 represents a flower- 
head of it, of the natural size. In fig. 2, we have, 
a little enlarged, one of those fourteen or fifteen 
“ petals,” as they would be called at first sight by 
one who did not know better; also one of those 
bodies which fill the whole center. Both have, we 
see, a forming seed-like fruit or grain at the bot¬ 
tom ; otherwise they appear to be not much alike. 
Regarding for the present inly the slender left-hand 
one, we observe that this is a perfect flower. The 
“ grain ” at the bottom is the lower or seed-bearing 
part of the pistil; on it rises the slender corolla, 
five-lobed at the top ; out of this projects the five 
anthers joined in a tube, just as in the “&h/mphy- 
andra ” Bell-flower of the former article ; and out 
of this projects the tip of the style, here 2-forkcd, 
or with two stigmas, instead of three. To make all 
plain, take two of these flowers (fig. 3 and 4), both 
younger, and magnify the upper part with a corn- 
size, the parts being a good deal larger than those 
of a Wliiteweed. It is a handsome plant which 
grows along the sea-shore in Ihe southern part of 
California —Leptosyne maritima is its name—and as 
Fig. 3.—flow 
moil pocket magnifying-glass, fig. 3 shows a young, 
and fig. 4 an older flower ; now the likeness to that 
particular sort of Bell-flower begins to show. Here 
there is no need to slice down the corolla, for the 
parts concerned project well out of it 
as soon as the top of the corolla opens. 
In fig. 3, the younger, we see the tube 
of anthers with a heap of pollen at 
the top. In fig. 4, showing the same 
flower a day older, the style lias length¬ 
ened and projected ; its tip is seen to 
be a two-pronged brush ; at the begin¬ 
ning it was at tlie bottom of the an¬ 
ther-tube. But gradually lengthening 
by growth below, it was pushed up 
through the tube, driving all the pollen 
before it: much of this still sticks to 
the rough, brush-like tips in fig. 4 ; by 
the next day these open and recurve as 
in fig. 5, (more enlarged!; and the 
stigmas, on which the pollen acts for 
fertilization, occupy the inner or now 
upper face of these two forks. 
Now we have only to notice that 
these flowers open in regular order 
from the circumference to the cen¬ 
ter, and are a week or more about it. 
At the time when the outermost and earliest are in 
the condition of fig. 2, and the style as in fig. 5, i. e., 
just ready to receive pollen, the rows next within 
will be in a condition of figs. 3 and 4, i. c., ready to 
supply pollen, but not to use it; and so on in suc¬ 
cession through to the center. Possibly the wind 
may blow some of this pollen from the one to the 
other; but the grains are slightly moist and viscid, 
so this is unlikely. But flying insects of all sorts 
visit these flowers, either for a little nectar or for 
pollen ; these, as they crawl over the tops of the 
thickly crowded blossoms, carry the pollen from 
flowers that are ready to give, to others ready to 
receive it, whenever they move from the center 
towards the circumference. 
And when they fly from one 
flower-head to another, they 
produce still wider cross-fer¬ 
tilization. Now and then a 
flower will be likely to be fer¬ 
tilized by its own pollen, but 
not often. The arrangement 
evidently is for cross-fertiliza¬ 
tion ; and the advantage of 
this close association of many flowers, which was 
the problem in baud, is found in the great facility 
it offers for co-operation in this matter. 
But why the more showy flowers surrounding the 
whole, with a great flag-shaped corolla, turned out¬ 
wards, so as to look like petals ? And why have 
these flowers, (as we see in fig. 2), only a pistil and 
no stamens? To answer the last question first; as 
they are the outermost and earliest, they could not 
supply pollen, if they had it, to any of their asso¬ 
ciates ; and they are themselves promptly fertilized 
by the adjacent and earliest perfect flowers that 
open. There is a saving, therefore, in their being 
pistillate or female only. As for the large corolla, 
that is a conspicuous and bright-colored flag, hung 
out for show—not for a vain show, but to attract 
insects from a distance. 
Sometimes these large and petal-like marginal 
flowers are merely for show, having no pistil, or a 
mere vestige, being reduced in fact to a flag-shaped 
corolla. Tli is is the case in Coreopsis and Sun¬ 
flower. In others they are wanting altogether, and 
the perfect flowers take on the duty of attraction 
as well as of seed bearing—sometimes by their 
corollas all becoming flag-shaped or strap-shaped, 
as in Dandelion and Chicory. 
So a “ compound flower,” is an association for 
mutual advantage. It is sometimes one, like pri¬ 
mitive society, in which all the members have the 
same office and do the same work; while others 
have reached the more advanced state, in which the 
work is divided—some individuals taking the orna¬ 
mental part of the work, some indeed becoming 
merely ornamental, but still useful. 
Since we have come to understand this, there is 
no need, and we have no reason, to suppose that 
any members of the floral society, or any parts of a 
blossom, exist for beauty’s sake—as some have 
thought. They are beautiful that they may be at¬ 
tractive, and attractive that they may be useful. If 
iu some cases “they toil not,” the glory in which 
they are arrayed is not for self-glorification, but for 
the good of others. 
Bunching Asparagus. 
Asparagus for city markets must be neatly 
bunched ; in villages we sometimes see it offered 
for sale loosed 
but iu cities it 
could hardly be 
sold in this con¬ 
dition. Bunch¬ 
ing is slow 
work, and dif 
ficult to do 
handsomely 
without some 
contrivance to 
hold the shoots while they are being tied, and to 
secure uniformity in size. The old buncher, (fig. 1), 
is better than nothing. This consists of a board 
with four pins 6 inches long, and placed about 4 
inches apart each way, to form a square. Two 
strings, usually of bass matting, are laid down on 
the board, which may be set on a bench up against 
the wall, or have a back made of another board 
Fig. 1. 
