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They are composed of a regular ring of strap-shaped, bright purple petals, springing from the erect bristly tube, and in the centre a disk-like cluster of rose-coloured stamens, the stigma standing well above them. In form the flowers are not unlike some of the Sunflowers or Mutisia decurrens. They are developed in summer, and on well-grown plants the display of blossom is exceptionally fine.
It is a very beautiful species, the large oval lip white, delicately veined with purple; the other petals and the sepals purple, strap-shaped, and elegantly curled and twisted.
All muscles, whatever their size or shape, are made up of little spindle-shaped or strap-shaped cells, or wriggling "body-cells" arranged in bands or strings. The size of a given muscle depends upon the number of cells that it contains. The astonishing variety of movements which muscles can make is due to the fact that they have the power when stirred up, or stimulated, of changing their shape.
The corolla is composed of a large number of long strap-shaped pointed petals, very thin and delicate, often beautifully coloured, and generally spreading outwards. It must not be supposed that all the genera into which Cactuses are divided are characterised by large flowers such as would render their study as easy as the genus taken as an illustration.
Gymnosperms, akin to the cycads, were also present in the Carboniferous forests. Such were the different species of CORDAITES, trees pyramidal in shape, with strap-shaped leaves and nutlike fruit. Other gymnosperms were related to the yews, and it was by these that many of the fossil nuts found in the Coal Measures were borne.
Flowers on the sides of the stems, rather low down, long-tubed; large, showy; tube 6 in. long, smooth, fleshy, with a few scales near the top, and a whorl of greenish, strap-shaped, pointed sepals, the petals spreading, with toothed margins and a long acute point, white or cream-coloured; anthers yellow. A native of various parts of South America and the West Indies, but always close to the sea.
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