Florists who cultivate the
Polyanthus and Auricula have long been aware of the two kinds of flowers, and
they call the plants which display the globular stigma at the mouth of the
corolla, "pin-headed" or "pin-eyed," and those which display the anthers,
"thrum-eyed." (1/2. In Johnson's Dictionary, "thrum" is said to be the ends of
weavers' threads; and I suppose that some weaver who cultivated the Polyanthus
invented this name, from being struck with some degree of resemblance between
the cluster of anthers in the mouth of the corolla and the ends of his threads.)
I will designate the two forms as the long-styled and short-styled.
The pistil in the long-styled form is almost exactly twice as long as that of
the short-styled. The stigma stands in the mouth of the corolla or projects just
above it, and is thus externally visible. It stands high above the anthers,
which are situated halfway down the tube and cannot be easily seen. In the
short-styled form the anthers are attached near the mouth of the tube, and
therefore stand above the stigma, which is seated in about the middle of the
tubular corolla. The corolla itself is of a different shape in the two forms;
the throat or expanded portion above the attachment of the anthers being much
longer in the long-styled than in the short-styled form. Village children notice
this difference, as they can best make necklaces by threading and slipping the
corollas of the long-styled flowers into one another.
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