Page:An introduction to physiological and systematical botany (1st edition).djvu/301

Rh of Filaments may be seen in the Tulip, where they are six in number, thick and short, ''Engl. Bot. t. 63; the Pink, where they are ten, much more slender, and answering to the idea of a filament or thread, t. 62; and Anenome, t.'' 51, where they are numerous. They are commonly smooth, but sometimes, as in Verbascum, t. 58, 59, bearded. In Melaleuca, Exot. Bot. t. 36 and 50, they are branched; and in Prunella, ''Engl. Bot. t.'' 961, forked, one point only bearing an Anther. In Aristolochia, t. 398, they are wanting, and nearly so in Potamogeton, t. 376, &c.

The Anther is the only essential part of a Stamen. it is generally of a membranous texture, consisting of two cells or cavities, bursting longitudinally at their outer edges, as in the Tulip. In Erica, t. 1013—15, it opens by pores near the summit, as in the Potatoε-blossom. Very rarely the Anther has four cells, as Tetratheca, Bot. of New Holl. t. 5 [sic], and ''Exot. Bot. t.'' 20 —22. Sometimes it is ornamented