. First studies in plant life in Australasia, with numerous questions, directions for outdoor work, and drawing and composition exercises. Botany. 104 FIRST STUDIES IN PLANT LIFE. 7. How the seed is thrown off. Take now a flower in the seeding stage, but not quite ripe. At this stage it looks Hke the long tapering bill of a stork. The hairy, green body which formed the upper part of the seed-case has now lengthened into a long column marked by five red lines. You guess at once that these five red lines run down to the five seed-cases. Looking now at a riper flower, you can clearly see that thi
. First studies in plant life in Australasia, with numerous questions, directions for outdoor work, and drawing and composition exercises. Botany. 104 FIRST STUDIES IN PLANT LIFE. 7. How the seed is thrown off. Take now a flower in the seeding stage, but not quite ripe. At this stage it looks Hke the long tapering bill of a stork. The hairy, green body which formed the upper part of the seed-case has now lengthened into a long column marked by five red lines. You guess at once that these five red lines run down to the five seed-cases. Looking now at a riper flower, you can clearly see that this is correct. Each red line has become a long, narrow stalk, which is ready to jerk its seed away from the column When quite ripe, these stalks become elastic, and curl up sud- denly so that the seed in the seed-case is thrown into the air (fig. 72). This is one of a thousand plans that plants have for scattering their seed. 8. The five-fold flowers. We have now seen that the flower is made up of four separate rings or whorls , the first ring being the sepals, the second the petals, the third the stamens, and the fourth the pistil. No doubt you have noticed that the numbers in three of the rings go by fives; and we may suppose that the ten stamens were, in earlier times, in two rows of five each. You must not suppose that in all flowers the rings go by fives. In some they go by threes ; but the five-fold plan is the one that we find in most of our familiar flowers. With a few exceptions, like the wall-flower, the plants that have two seed- leaves have the five-fold plan. Plants that grow from Wild gtiranium about to throw its last seed. also fig. 94. See. Please note that these images are extracted from scanned page images that may have been digitally enhanced for readability - coloration and appearance of these illustrations may not perfectly resemble the original Gillies, William. Melbourne, Whitcombe & Tombs, Ltd
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