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The pollen is, moreover, peculiar, being collected into more or less compact masses, and variously concealed in the flower. Some of these are club-shaped, with a viscid extremity, others of the consistency of a sticking-plaster, and all are hidden from external view in pouches and pockets, from which they never emerge unless withdrawn on the body of an insect.
For contrast there are the little bunches of whitish berries on the low-growing false spikenard; they are speckled with reddish and gray dots as if they might be cowbird's eggs in miniature. Jack-in-the-pulpits show club-shaped bunches of scarlet berries here and there among the grasses.
The flowers are developed on the sides of the stems, principally the younger, shorter ones; the flower tube is about 4 in. long by 1 in. in diameter, and is covered with short brown scales and whitish hairs; the calyx is 1 ft. across, and is composed of a large number of narrow sepals of a bright yellow colour inside, brown on the outside; the petals are broad, pure white, and arranged in a sort of cup inclosing the numerous yellow stamens and the club-shaped stigma.
The cap is persistent, and increases annually with the stem. MAMILLARIA. Stems short, usually globose, and covered with tubercles or mammae, rarely ridged, the apex bearing spiny cushions; flowers mostly in rings round the stem. PELECYPHORA. Stem small, club-shaped; tubercles in spiral rows, and flattened on the top, where are two rows of short scale-like spines.
Some attempt has been made to reproduce under an artistic form the aspect of the world in the different geological ages, and to present in single connected pictures the animal and vegetable world of each period. First, we have the Devonian shores, with spreading fields of sea-weed and numbers of the club-shaped Algae of gigantic size.
Every branch of this miniature shrub terminates in a little club-shaped head, upon which are scattered a number of tentacles. They are in constant motion, extending and contracting their tentacles, some of the heads stretched upwards, others bent downwards, all seeming very busy and active.
It is gathered by means of long forked sticks, for if it should drop to the ground it would be broken. The pulp of the stalk yields a little juice or sap which is used by the Indians when hard pressed for water. Scattered among the huge club-shaped columns of the saguaro is the cholla, the next largest of the cactuses.
The flowers are developed on the top of the stem, generally two or three together, egg-shaped and scaly when in bud, 2½ in. across when expanded; the petals white, tipped with brown; the stigma green, club-shaped. This curious little Cactus is one of about a dozen species found in the Chilian Andes.
The plants of this period are not the plants of to-day, though we still have some very degenerate representatives of them. The common horse-tail, with its angular, slender, leaflike branches and its club-shaped spore-bearing body, is a modern degenerate descendant of the treelike calamites of the Carboniferous forest.
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