Pilsen

“ Those flowers in which the pistil as a whole extends towards the right hand, facing in the same direction as the flower, will be called right-handed, and those in which the pistil as a whole extends toward the left, left-handed. It will be seen that, since the tips of pistil and large stamen approach each other, as above described, the tip of the pistil in a right-handed flower turns considerably toward the left, and vice versa. The flowers on the right-hand side of the raceme, as we pass out from the central axis of the plant, are always left-handed, and those on the left side, right-handed. ”

“ An organ serving for two purposes, may become rudimentary or utterly aborted for one, even the more important purpose; and remain perfectly efficient for the other. Thus in plants, the office of the pistil is to allow the pollen-tubes to reach the ovules protected in the ovarium at its base. The pistil consists of a stigma supported on the style; but in some Compositæ, the male florets, which of course cannot be fecundated, have a pistil, which is in a rudimentary state, for it is not crowned with a stigma ”

“ It is convenient to have a name for each flower-leaf of the gynœcium; so it is called a Carpel, in Latin Carpellum or Carpidium. A simple pistil is a carpel. Each component flower-leaf of a compound pistil is likewise a carpel. When a flower has two or more pistils, these of course are simple pistils, that is, separate carpels or pistil-leaves. There may be only a single simple pistil to the flower, as in a Pea or Cherry blossom (Fig. 271) ; there may be two such, as in many Saxifrages; or many, as in the Strawberry. More commonly the single pistil in the centre of a blossom is a compound one. ”

“ The pistil consists of two parts—viz., the ovary or germen, which contains the ovules or young seeds, a, and the stigma, b, either placed upon the ovary, or upon the style, or stalk, which is between the stigma and the ovary.
A pistil may be of one carpel (simple) , or of more than one (compound) . The carpels or the carpellary leaves are the “ovaries.”
The pistil is a very important test for the classification of plants; some trees have no pistils, and the ovules are consequently naked. Such plants are called gymnospermæ. ”

“ The pistil merely opens up a bit and down travels the powder into the seed vessel to help form seed. There would be no real fertile seed without the pollen.
"Sometimes the pollen from one flower falls on its own pistil, sometimes the wind, the bees, the birds carry the pollen to flowers far off and drop it on their pistils. Marvelous, is it not? Everything has to be just right, or the pollen does not do its work nor the pistil, either. Pollen has to be ripe to help make the seed. ”

“ In its complete form a pistil consists of three parts ovary, at the base, containing the bodies which become seeds, style (Gr. στῦλος, pillar) , and stigma (Gr. στίγμα, mark, στίζειν, to brand) , the part which in impregnation receives the pollen. ”

“ The Pistils, no less essential than the Stamens, stand within them in the centre of the flower, and are generally fewer. When in a different flower, on the same or a different plant, that are not always central. Linnæus conceived them to originate from the pith, and the stamens from the wood, and hence constructed an ingenious hypothesis, relative to the propagation of vegetables, which is not destitute of observations and analogies to support it, but no countenanced by the anatomy and physiology of the parts alluded to. ”

“ Petal. This is part of the corolla, and what is termed, by the uninformed—leaf; for instance, we hear of drying rose leaves, when in fact it is the petals that are alluded to. The term leaf should only be applied to the foliage. [14]
Pistil, or Pistillum, is that part of a flower which projects directly from the centre, and is longer than the rest; we observe it in the white lily, fuchsia, honeysuckle, etc. The enlargement at the end of the pistil is termed stigma.
Stamens, or Stamina, signify the filaments that surround the pistil ”

“ The most essential region of the pistil is the ovary, for it contains the ovules. Next in importance is the stigma, for it must receive the pollen-grains. The style is of least importance, and therefore is sometimes wanting, the stigma being directly upon the ovary. ”

“ In some flowers, we meet with beautiful contrivances for securing the fecundation of their pistils. Thus, such as are erect have usually the stamens longer than the pistils, whilst in pendulous flowers it will be found that the pistils are the longest and the stamens the shortest. By this admirable relative adjustment, the pollen, in falling, comes into contact with the pistil. ”

“ The ovules are equally developed in the two forms. In the female the pistil is perfect, whilst the anthers are entirely destitute of pollen. In the polleniferous form, the pistil is short and the stigmas never separate from one another, so that, although their surfaces are covered with fairly well-developed papillae, they cannot be fertilised, these latter plants do not commonly yield any fruit, and are therefore in function males. Nevertheless, on one occasion Fritz Muller found flowers of this kind in which the stigmas had separated, and they produced some fruit. ”

“ Flowers are the reproductive organs. In the blossom of the Bean, the stamens are the male organs and the pistil is the female organ. The stamens produce dust-like pollen which is conveyed by the wind to the pistil of some other flower. Pollen grains deposited on the stigma of the pistil are held there by a sticky secretion until they can grow a long tube which travels down the style, eventually reaching and fertilizing the tiny ovules or eggs. ”

“ To make a perfect seed the stamen and pistil have to enter into partnership. The stamen sends out thousands of clear orange pollen grains (Fig. 3, b) , and when these fall on the top of the lily or pistil, as some have done in. Fig. 2, they stick fast. The lily, for all its innocent look, has laid a trap for them; it is covered with a sticky substance that holds them fast. The tiny little grain begins to send out a tube like a little hose-pipe, which grows down and down to the bottom of the lily. ”

“ The pistil, or female, continues to grow in length; and in a few days the stigma arrives again amongst the upper set, by the time they become mature. This wonderful contrivance is readily seen by opening the keel-leaf of the flowers of broom before they burst spontaneously. See note on Collinsonia, Gloriosa, Draba. ”

“ PROCESS OF FERTILIZATION.—The young seeds or ovules are contained in the interior of the pistil before the flower opens, and continue to grow until that time, but no longer, unless they are acted upon by the pollen of the anthers. The necessity of this process shows why it is that stamens and pistils are so constantly found in flowers, and why the former surround the latter so nicely as they in general do; and, even in circumstances which seem somewhat adverse to fertilization, still some admirable contrivance is always found to bring about the same end. ”

“ So much for the small flower's method of making insects serve its end; the larger flowers have another way. At first they are male; that is, the pistil is as yet undeveloped and the four stamens are mature, ready to shed pollen on any insect alighting on the lip. Later, when the stamens are past maturity, the pistil elongates itself and is ready for the reception of pollen brought from younger flowers. Many blossoms are male on the first day of opening, and female later, to protect themselves against self-fertilization. ”

“ Pilch, an outer garment generally worn in cold weather, and made of skins of fur. 'Pelicium, a pylche.' (Nominale MS.) The term is still retained in connected senses in our dialects. 'A piece of flannel, or other woollen, put under a child next the clout is, in Kent, called a pilch; a coarse shagged piece of rug laid over a saddle, for ease of a rider, is, in our midland parts, called a pilch.' (MS. Lansd. 1033.) 'Warme pilche and warme shon.' (MS. Digby, 86.) 'In our old dramatists the term is applied to a buff or leather jerkin; and Shakspeare has pilcher for the sheath of a sword. ”

“ Here each carpel is an open leaf, or with some introflexion, bearing ovules along its margins; and each placenta consists of the contiguous [Pg 109] margins of two pistil-leaves grown together. There is every gradation between this and the three-celled ovary with the placentæ in the axis, even in the same genus, sometimes even in different stages in the same pistil (Fig. 335, 336) .
§ 2. GYMNOSPERMOUS GYNŒCIUM.
313. The ordinary pistil has a closed ovary, and accordingly the pollen can act upon the contained ovules only indirectly, through the stigma. ”

“ A single scale does not remain open longer than others because its ovules have not been pollinated, as might be supposed from the fact that almost universally among plants the style of a pistil which has not been pollinated remains fresh and the stigma receptive, and persists for a much longer period than in one which has been pollinated. ”

“ The inner row of stamens are without anthers, and form a kind of vandyke edging to the pistil, as shown at e. The pistil consists generally of sixteen carpels, growing together into a vase-like, many-celled berry, as shown at d; the spreading stigmas, which have also grown together, forming a kind of lid. The carpels are completely enclosed by the receptacle which rises up round them, and forms a thick fleshy covering, as shown at f. The seeds are numerous, and they are covered with a thick leathery skin. The embryo is small, and it is surrounded by a great mass of floury albumen. ”

“ It is claimed that when these organs do not mature simultaneously the plums do not set unless pollen is supplied from some other source. The task of taking notes at blossoming time on more than three hundred varieties of plums on the grounds of this Station has given abundant opportunity to observe the comparative degrees of maturity of pistils and stamens in varieties of this fruit. In general the pistils mature first, often three or four days before the stamens. Rarely the pollen is disgorged before the stigmas are receptive. ”

“ The liquor from the tube of the pistil, and a solution of sugar in water, were also found to produce this evolution in very mature grains from the anther. It also sometimes takes place in the twinkling of an eye, so as to be scarcely traced in some few grains out of a number put into spirit at once. Those which have been some time in contact with the pistil are always most: sluggish in their evolution.
5. Carex acuta. Anthers oblong, crumbling. Pollen angular, opake, with apparent perforations. ”

“ The Philosophia ichthyologica is devoted to a description of the external and internal parts of fishes; Artedi fixes a precise terminology for all the various modifications of the organs, distinguishing between those characters which determine a genus and such as indicate a species or merely a variety; in fact he establishes the method and principles which subsequently have guided every systematic ichthyologist. (3) The Genera piscium contains well-defined diagnoses of forty-five genera, for which he has fixed an unchangeable nomenclature. ”

“ This new pollen enables strong seeds to form. The jewelweed is very careful to have strong seeds. It covers the pistil with a hood of its own anthers. Behind the anthers in a dark little room the pistil waits until all the pollen is gone and the anthers have fallen off.
The flower does not wish its pistil to receive its own pollen. The earth is crowded, and the seeds must be strong to grow. So the pistil is hidden behind the screen of the anthers until there is no 69more pollen left; then it comes forth and waits for the birds or the bees to bring it fresh pollen. ”

“ Meiophylly of the gynœcium.—Numerical inequality in the case of the pistil, as compared with the other whorls of the flower, is of such common occurrence, under ordinary circumstances, that in some text-books it is looked on as the normal condition, and a flower which is isomerous in the outer whorls is by some writers not considered numerically irregular if the number of the carpels does not coincide with that of the other organs. ”

“ Perithecia, bottle-like receptacles containing asci. Peronate, used when the stem has a distinct stocking-like coat. Persistent, inclined to hold firm, tenacious. Pervious, forming an open tube-like passage. Pileate, having a cap. Pileoli, secondary pilei; arising from a division of the primary pileus. Pileus, the cap, receptacle, or one part of a mushroom; other parts are the stem and gills. Pilose, covered with hairs. Pits, depressions in cells or tubes resembling pores, applied also to hollow depressions in the surface of the cap of the morel. ”

“ Pelle knew every mouse-hole in the meadow, and they lay down and examined them carefully. “Here’s one that has mice in it,” said Rud. “Look, here’s their dunghill!”
“Yes, that smells of mouse,” said Pelle, putting his nose to the hole. “And the blades of grass turn outward, so the old ones must be out.”
With Pelle’s knife they cut away the turf, and set to work eagerly to dig with two pieces of pot. The soil flew about their heads as they talked and laughed. ”

“ Some of them would only teach the lesson of a lack of equilibrium among the laws which determine definite lines of growth. Others would serve to open the door to some hidden fact of vegetable morphology. Thus, the interchange of stamens and pistils in some abnormal blossom teaches the lesson of the common origin of the two essential organs, while the gradation of either or both to floral envelopes indicates that pistils are only petals of a special form for a special purpose. In short, the malformations as we speak of them are only forms in less than their usual disguise. ”