. Flowers and their pedigrees . an understand thesalad-burnet better if we look first at common agri-mony, another little field weed about a foot high, withwhich most country people are familiar ; for, thoughagrimony is not itself an example of degradation, itsarrangement leads us on gradually to the lower has a number of small yellow flowers like those ofthe cinquefoil ; only, instead of standing singly on .separate flower stalks, they are all arranged togetheron a common terminal spike, in the same way as in ahyacinth or a gladiolus. Now, agrimony is fertilised by A Family History.
. Flowers and their pedigrees . an understand thesalad-burnet better if we look first at common agri-mony, another little field weed about a foot high, withwhich most country people are familiar ; for, thoughagrimony is not itself an example of degradation, itsarrangement leads us on gradually to the lower has a number of small yellow flowers like those ofthe cinquefoil ; only, instead of standing singly on .separate flower stalks, they are all arranged togetheron a common terminal spike, in the same way as in ahyacinth or a gladiolus. Now, agrimony is fertilised by A Family History. 229 insects, and therefore, like most other small field roses,it has conspicuous yellow petals to attract its wingedallies. But the salad-burnet, starting from a some-what similar form, has undergone a good deal ofdegradation in adapting itself to has a long spike of flowers, like the agrimony ; butthese flowers are very small, and are closely crowdedtogether into a sort of little mophead at the end of the. A B Fig. 48.—Single flower of Salad Burnet, male and female. stem. They have lost their petals, because these wereno longer needed to allure bees or butterflies, and theyretain only the green calyx or flower-cup, so that thewhole spike looks merely a bit of greenish vegetation,and would never be taken for a blossoming head byany save a botanical eye. The stamens hang out onlong thread-like stems from the cup, so that the windmay catch the pollen and waft it to a neighbouringhead ; while the pistils which it is to fertilise have 230 Flowers and their Pedigrees. their sensitive sufface divided into numerous littleplumes or brushes, so as readily to catch any straypollen grain which may happen to pass their , in each head, all the upper flowers havepistils and embryo seed vessels only, without anystamens ; while all the lower flowers have stamens andpollen bags only, without any pistils. This sort ofdivision of labour, together with the same
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1880, booksubjectbotany, bookyear1884
