Page:An introduction to physiological and systematical botany (1st edition).djvu/337

 Rh. Some plants have united flowers and separated ones in the same species, either from one, two or three roots, and such are called polygamous, as making a sort of compound household.

A Compound flower consists of numerous florets, flosculi, all sessile on a common undivided Receptacle, and enclosed in one contiguous Calyx or Perianthium. It is also essential to this kind of flower that the Anthers should be united into a cylinder, to which only the genus Tussilago affords one or two exceptions, and Kuhnia another; and moreover, that the Stamens should be 5 to each floret, Sigesbeckia flosculosa of L'Heritier, ''Stirp. Nov''. t. 19, alone having but 3. The florets are always monopetalous and superior, each standing on a solitary naked seed, or at least the rudiments of one, though not always perfected. Some Compound flowers consist of very few florets, as Humea elegans, ''Exot. Bot. t. 1, Prenanthes muralis, Engl. Bot. t. 457; others of many, as the Thistle, Daisy, Sunflower, c. The florets themselves are of two kinds, ligulati'', ligulate, shaped like a strap or ribband, with 3 or 5