Stamen

“ There is, however, no sufficient reason for regarding the monstrous form as necessarily primitive or ancestral, nor even as a stage in the ontogeny of the organ. For when the older morphologists spoke of a stamen as a “metamorphosed” leaf, it was implied that it originated as a foliage-leaf and subsequently became a stamen. As a matter of fact, a stamen is a stamen and nothing else, from the very beginning. The development of the organ is already determined at its first appearance upon the growing-point ”

“ Do not forget to look at the stamens. You will see that there is one stamen whose slender stem is not joined with the others, but has a separate stalk of its own.
The flowers grow in clusters on a stiff stalk; the buds are at the end of the stalk, and the flowers that grow lowest on the stalk always open first. When the flower is withered, the seed-vessel grows into a small green pea-pod which has a curly tail at the end, and when the seeds are ripe, this pod turns brown. ”

“ See also succeeding paragraphs and sections in Chloranthy, Virescence, &c.
Phyllody of the stamens happens less frequently than the corresponding condition in the neighbouring organs. The structure of the anther is so much removed from that of the leaf, that the change of the stamen from its ordinary condition to that of a leaf must be regarded as indicating a greater degree of perverted development than that which occurs in those cases where less highly differentiated organs, such as the sepals, petals, and pistils, are thus altered. ”

“ Let us glance, for instance, at the row of stamens below (Fig. 1) , selected at random from different flowers, with one exception wild flowers. Almost everybody knows that the function of the stamen is the secretion of pollen. This function, however, has really no reference whatever to the external form of the stamen. Why, then, this re [Pg 107] markable divergence? Here is an anther with its two cells connected lengthwise, and opening at the sides, perhaps balanced at the centre upon the top of its stalk or filament, or laterally attached and continuous with it ”

“ Flowering Season--May-July.
Distribution--Ontario to Florida, Manitoba to Texas.
It is the densely bearded, yellow, fifth stamen (pente = five, stemon = a stamen) which gives this flower its scientific name and its chief interest to the structural botanist. From the fact that a blossom has a lip in the centre of the lower half of its corolla, that an insect must use as its landing place, comes the necessity for the pistil to occupy a central position. Naturally, a fifth stamen would be only in its way, an encumbrance to be banished in time. ”

“ Plants indeed have occasionally abortive stamens in one flower and barren pistils in another, and the Plantain-tree, Musa, is described by Linnæus as having five out of its six stamens perfected in such blossoms as ripen no fruit, while those with a fertile germen contain only a single ripe stamen, five being ineffective. ”

“ The increased number of stamens in a single whorl may result from a development of organs usually suppressed, and constitute a form of regular peloria as in Linaria, wherein a fifth stamen is occasionally met with. ”

“ In such cases it seems more natural to suppose that one gives place to the other, than that there is an independent development of a new part. However, when we come to the cultivated plants, this seeming chasm between petals and stamens is bridged, and the difficulty now turns upon deciding whether a certain organ is more or less stamen than petal. ”

“ For the purpose of bringing about the desired union, all the higher plants are supplied with special organs known as stamens and pistils. The pistils produce the embryo seed, which is, in fact, a tiny separate plant, whose development is arrested at a very early stage, unless fresh material from a neighboring stamen is supplied to supplement it. The stamens produce the pollen-grains, which are, in fact, free cells containing a large quantity of very vitalized matter capable of fertilizing and vivifying the embryo seed. ”

“ There is thus traced a degradation, as it is called, from a flower with three stamens and three divisions of the calyx, to one with a single bract and a single stamen.
Degeneration, or the transformation of parts, often gives rise either to an apparent want of symmetry or to irregularity in form. In unisexual flowers it is not uncommon to find vestiges of the undeveloped stamens in the form of filiform bodies or scales. In double flowers transformations of the stamens and pistils take place, so that they appear as petals. In Canna, what are called petals are in reality metamorphosed stamens. ”

“ The stamens are free, equal to the number of petals, and are placed opposite them; the filaments short, occasionally so irritable, that on being slightly touched on the inner surface near the base, they spring forward with elastic force, and strike the anther against the stigma. ”

“ In those classes of plants in which the flowers are only furnished with a small and definite number of stamens, the act of becoming double by the aberrant transformation of the stamens into petals necessarily causes the flower to be altogether barren; useless but beautiful pelatets having taken the place of the whole of the seed-producing system. ”

“ But the case is different with the fifth stamen in the peloric Antirrhinum, which is produced by the redevelopment of a rudiment always present, and which probably reveals to us the state of the flower, as far as the stamens are concerned, at some ancient epoch. ”

“ But whether stamens are transformed petals, or petals transformed stamens seems to be a mooted question. In Gray we read, “Petals numerous, in many rows, the innermost gradually passing into stamens,” while Mr. Grant Allen writes: “Petals are in all probability enlarged and flattened stamens, which have been set apart for the work of attracting insects,” and goes on to say, “Flowers can and do exist without petals, ... but no flower can possibly exist without stamens, which are one of the two essential reproductive organs in the plant.” ”

“ There was nothing to indicate a fusion of flowers, but rather an extension of the centre of the flower, and consequent displacement of the stamens, &c. Again, the existence of adventitious stamens does not necessarily imply the development of organs usually suppressed, inasmuch as they may result from the assumption by the lateral petals of staminal characteristics. ”

“ What is required for the fertilization of the seed-germs is—that this fluid should be conveyed to and taken up by them. But they are in the centre of the thick green ovary—this in the chambers of the stamens!
A simple arrangement brings all about. At a certain time we may see the black heads of the stamens covered with a fine flour, which adheres to whatever touches them. This flour is made up solely of pollen-grains, escaping in unimaginable numbers from the chambers where they are produced. ”

“ Other plant individuals devote their energies to the production of new plant-units, namely, the stamens—the male units of the flowers—which perish as soon as their transient but important work of fertilizing the pistil is accomplished ”

“ It is those flowers that have an indefinite number of stamens that display the greatest natural disposition to become double by a number of the superabundant stamens becoming petalets in the process of their transformation from leaf-germs. The rose, therefore, and its allies, having a part of their seed-producing system composed of a great number of stamens, form a family group of flowers which are much more subject to the aberration which diverts a portion of the intended stamens into petalets, than plants which produce flowers with fewer stamens. ”

“ If the scales of the flower are artificially separated, the growth can be produced by warmth and moisture; Askenasy describes a trick of country children, who put ears of rye in their mouths and thus produce a miraculous growth of stamens. The growth or rapid turgescence takes place, according to the same p. 9writer, at the pace of one millimetre in three minutes.
The explosive male flowers of the nettle have a somewhat similar meaning. The young stamen is bent so that the upper end of the anther touches the base of the filament. ”

“ It is a conspicuous example of a flower which has guarded itself against self-fertilization, and which is beautifully calculated to secure the opposite result. The position of the stamens is such that their pollen could not easily reach the stigmas of the same flower, for these are borne on the inner surface of the petal-like, overarching styles. ”

“ Of the two whorls of stamens the one opposite the sepals is often present only as rudiments or is entirely suppressed, and the completely developed stamens are thus placed opposite the petals. The carpels are generally placed opposite the sepals. The ovary is multilocular with the ovules attached in the inner angles. The fruit is most frequently a berry. The seeds are large, generally solitary, or a few in each loculus.—All plants belonging to this family are trees or shrubs with scattered, single, most frequently entire, penninerved and leathery leaves without stipules ”

“ Each stands inside a gold-striped petal, and has a groove on the outer side like a bath-tub. In this a princess is bathing. She is a stamen, with a long, whitish anther like a veil over her head. So there were three stamens inserted with the petals.
How we found out the Truth.— (This process is introduced with some solemnity, as befits its importance.) 1. We looked to see how the pollen got on the stigma. (Introduction to the biological method of studying structure in association with function.) 2. We noticed that the pollen could slip down the groove into the tube leading to the ovary. 8. ”

“ In the production of seed we find the aim and end of all floral structures. The pistil remains after the flowering period is past and becomes the fruit, which may or may not be accompanied by other portions of the flower. The stamens serve their purpose as they shed their pollen, and usually quickly wither away, and the latter is generally true of the petals. ”

“ Sepals petal-like, falling early; 4 to 8 small stamen-like petals 2-cleft; stamens very numerous, with long filaments; 1 or 2 sessile pistils with broad stigmas. Leaves: Alternate, on long petioles, thrice compounded of oblong, deeply toothed or cleft leaflets, the end leaflet often again compound. ”

“ Syngenesia. Stamens united by their Anthers into a tube, rarely by their Filaments also; and the flowers are Compound. A very natural and extremely numerous Class. Examples of it are the Dandelion, Daisy, Sunflower, &c.
20. Gynandria. Stamens united with, or growing out of the Pistil; either proceeding from the Germen, as in Aristolochia, Engl. Bot. t., or from the Style, as in the Orchis family. The Passion-flower is wrongly put by Linnæus and others into this Class, as its stamens merely grow out of an elongated receptacle or column supporting the Germen. ”

“ The fructification is attached to the stem by a thick stalk, which, in its upper part, bears a large number of spirally arranged bracts, forming collectively a kind of perianth and completely enclosing the essential organs of reproduction. The latter consist of a whorl of stamens, of extremely elaborate structure, surrounding a central cone or receptacle bearing numerous ovules. The stamens resemble the fertile fronds of a fern ”

“ At other times, however, the transformation takes place at the same time, both in the filament and in the anther. When the stamens are numerous some of them remain in their normal state, while others, and especially the inner ones, undergo a change. Sometimes all the stamens are changed simultaneously, while at other times some of these organs may be found in which the anther is partially filled with ovules, and partially with pollen. ”

“ There are twelve to eighteen 157 158 petals, half an inch long, resembling stamens. The real stamens have dark-red anthers, but yellow pollen, and both petals and stamens are densely crowded around the ovary. The round fruit has a narrow neck, concave top, and many seeds. In quiet mountain ponds we find these yellow flowers, on stout stems standing up out of the water, the lily-pads floating idly on its surface. Indians grind the seeds into meal for porridge, or else roast them and eat them like popcorn. ”

“ You must translate the effect of nature into clay, and in the case of the stamens you will find it a good plan to build up the centre of the flower, and then press into it a pointed stick, repeating the operation until the whole of the centre is perforated, as it were, like a grater. ”

“ In the entire community or compound organism, in other words, we may regard the stamens and ovaries as particular members, told off, like the queen-bees and drones in the hive, to fulfill the part of fathers and mothers, while the true leaves, like the workers, provide the food or material for growth. Thus, even in the same flower the stamens and ovaries are properly to be regarded as distinct individuals, capable of producing healthy offspring with one another, like the queen bees and drones of the same hive.
Nature, however, does not stop here. ”

“ The stamens do not stand erect as in most other species, but are incurved towards the centre to such an extent that the filaments from opposite stamens meet and the anthers are consequently enclosed in the lentil-shaped cavity thus formed above the concave apex of the ovary. ”