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Pistil   Listen
noun
Pistil  n.  (Bot.) The seed-bearing organ of a flower. It consists of an ovary, containing the ovules or rudimentary seeds, and a stigma, which is commonly raised on an elongated portion called a style. When composed of one carpel a pistil is simple; when composed of several, it is compound.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Pistil" Quotes from Famous Books



... students. The minutest facts engaged him. He studies the difference between the stamens of the same plant. He counted nine thousand seeds, one by one, from artificially fertilized pods. Plants from two pollens, he says, grow at different rates. Any difference in the position of the pistil, or in the size and color of the stamens, in individuals of the same species grown together, was of ...
— The Last Harvest • John Burroughs

... time the catkins had elongated and about ready to shed pollen. This warm spell was followed by a fairly cool weather and considerable rain, which delayed the opening of the pistillate flowers, consequently the pollen dried and was lost before the pistil was receptive. ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the 43rd Annual Meeting - Rockport, Indiana, August 25, 26 and 27, 1952 • Various

... tubular, but terminating upwards in a ligulate limb, is inflated into a globular figure at the base. The tubular part is internally beset with stiff hairs, pointing downwards. The globular part contains the pistil, which consists merely of a germen and stigma, together with the surrounding stamens. But the stamens, being shorter than the germen, cannot discharge the pollen so as to throw it upon the stigma, as the flower stands always upright till after impregnation. And hence, without some ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... wholesome and real within the other extant historical religions. Nevertheless, all religions are effectual through their special developments, where these developments remain true at all. As well deprive a flower of its 'mere details' of pistil, stamen, pollen, or an insect of its 'superfluous' antennae, as simplify any Historical Religion down to the sorry stump labelled 'the religion of every honest man'. We shall escape all bigotry, without ...
— Progress and History • Various

... Orchard 6 is the partially protected planting while Orchard 16 is fully exposed. Most of the trees in Orchard 6 were nine years old, while those in Orchard 16 are six years old or less. Wood injury, catkin injury, and pistil injury will be ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Twenty-Fifth Annual Meeting • Northern Nut Growers Association

... pistil, too," continued the tall man, who had already spoken, and who was the coloured ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell

... we hope he will grow out of their category. He appears to dread accurate thinking, and to imagine that knowledge destroys the charm of nature. "Which," he asks, "comes nearest to the truth about love—poor Lombroso's talk about pistil and stamen, or one of Shakespeare's sonnets?" The root, he says, is no ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (Second Series) • George W. Foote

... is another part to each flower that is of equal value. This part you will find in the center of the flower, inside the circle of stamens. It is called the pistil (Fig. 32). The swollen tip of the pistil is the stigma. The swollen base of the pistil forms the ovary. If you carefully cut open this ovary you will find in it very small ...
— Agriculture for Beginners - Revised Edition • Charles William Burkett

... a baby in the mother's body is in some ways like the coming of the seed in the body of the flower. You have probably learned at school in your nature-study work that these are—what? Yes, the petals. And these stamens, and this is the pistil. Do you notice the powder on the end of the stamen? That is called pollen. If you put that powder under magnifying glass, each grain will look like a grain of wheat. Now, do you notice that the pistil ...
— The Social Emergency - Studies in Sex Hygiene and Morals • Various

... a remarkable trailer, whose delicate leafage looked quite out of place among its coarse surroundings, with a purplish-brown campanulate blossom, only remarkable for a peculiar arrangement of the pistil, green stamens, and a most offensive carrion-like odour, which is probably to attract to it a very objectionable-looking fly, ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird

... merely a case of unmeaning variability. But on examining the common species of Primula I found that the two forms were much too regular and constant to be thus viewed. I therefore became almost convinced that the common cowslip and primrose were on the high road to become dioecious;—that the short pistil in the one form, and the short stamens in the other form were tending towards abortion. The plants were therefore subjected under this point of view to trial; but as soon as the flowers with short pistils fertilised with pollen from the short stamens, were found to yield more seeds than any ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin

... Abel, who had heard the click of cocking the pistol, and saw that he held it in his hand, as he came towards him. "Gi' me that pistil, and yeou fetch that 'ere rope layin' there. I 'll have this here fella,h fixed 'n less ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... faces. The petals cast a clear, rosy reflection upon their sallow cheeks. Some of the younger mothers took their little children over to the table and lifting them up till their round shining eyes were on a level with the flower, let them gaze their fill at the mysterious splendor of stamen and pistil. ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher

... cross-fertilised. Nevertheless, if insects are excluded, the flowers fertilise themselves perfectly and produce plenty of seed; but I did not ascertain whether this is effected by the stamens increasing in length with advancing age, or by the bending down of the pistil. The chief interest in my experiments on the present species, lies in the appearance in the fourth self-fertilised generation of a variety which bore large peculiarly-coloured flowers, and grew to a greater height than the other varieties; it likewise ...
— The Effects of Cross & Self-Fertilisation in the Vegetable Kingdom • Charles Darwin

... and the pistil are the essential organs of a flower, because they, and they only, are needed in the formation of seeds. The pollen from the stamen, acting on the pistil, causes the ovules which are in the pistil to grow ...
— Trees of the Northern United States - Their Study, Description and Determination • Austin C. Apgar

... groaned the cracker. "I ain't tryin' ter. But I cyan't let you roast in this yere d—— barbecue! Look a yere!" He lowered the revolver through the window. "Thar's a pistil, an' w'en th' fire cotches onter you an' yo' gwine suah 's shootin', then put it ter yo' head an' pull the trigger, an' ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 7 • Various

... greater than the retention of the including cortical part; whence the substance of the bark is expanded in the calyx; that of the rind, (or interior bark,) in the corol; that of the wood in the stamens, that of the medulla in the pistil. Vegetation thus terminates in the production of new life, the ultimate medullary and cortical fibres being collected in the seeds." Linnei Systema Veget. p. ...
— The Botanic Garden - A Poem in Two Parts. Part 1: The Economy of Vegetation • Erasmus Darwin

... her two new friends, the flies, returned, accompanied by an innumerable troop of winged insects. Each one carried something, one a blade of grass, another a stalk of a plant, another a petal, another a pistil. Two large beetles, with immense horns or talons, dragged along small branches loaded with flowers, such as ...
— Piccolissima • Eliza Lee Follen

... heard of Owen: they met as enemies—a very good way to begin an acquaintance. It was Nature's old, old game of stamen, pistil and pollen, that fertilizes the world of business, ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 11 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen • Elbert Hubbard

... events in the moral and political world may be compared to those produced in the vegetable kingdom by the storms and heavy gales so usual at the vernal equinox, the time of the formation of the seed; the pollen or farina of one flower is thrown upon the pistil of another, and the crossing of varieties of plants so essential to the perfection of the vegetable world produced. In man moral causes and physical ones modify each other; the transmission of hereditary qualities to offspring is distinct ...
— Consolations in Travel - or, the Last Days of a Philosopher • Humphrey Davy

... sweets. The racemes of purple bells held up by the foxglove are methodically visited by it, commencing at the bottom flower, and ascending step by step to the highest. The four stamens and the pistil of the foxglove are laid closely against the upper side of the flower. First a stamen on one side opens its anthers and exposes its pollen. The humble-bee, as it bustles in and out, brushes this off. Then another stamen exposes its pollen on the ...
— The Naturalist in Nicaragua • Thomas Belt

... gives some plants to two or three women appointed to the office of shaman's assistants. At an ordinary gathering, a dozen or two of the plants suffice. The women are called rokoro, which means the stamen of the flower, while the shaman is the pistil The women grind the plants with water on the metate, and then take part in the dance. They must wash their hands most carefully before touching them; and while they are grinding a man stands by with a gourd, to catch any stray drop of liquor ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz

... A handsome shrub with leaves of very deep green, long-pointed; the flowers a pure white, without visible stamina or pistil, the petals standing angularly to each other. It has little or no scent. The pachah-piring (Gardenia florida, described by Rumphius under the name of catsjopiri) is a grand white double flower, emitting a pleasing and not ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden

... that curious nurserymen select any remarkable variety out of the immense beds of seedlings which are annually raised for making hedges. The flowers of the hawthorn usually include from one to three pistils; but in two varieties, named Monogyna and Sibirica, there is only a single pistil; and d'Asso states that the common thorn in Spain is constantly in this state.[780] There is also a variety which is apetalous, or has its petals reduced to mere rudiments. The famous Glastonbury thorn flowers and leafs towards the end of December, at which time it bears berries produced ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Vol. I. • Charles Darwin

... Opuntia Darwinii "Magazine of Zoology and Botany" volume 1 page 466, which was remarkable for the irritability of the stamens, when I inserted either a piece of stick or the end of my finger in the flower. The segments of the perianth also closed on the pistil, but more slowly than the stamens. Plants of this family, generally considered as tropical, occur in North America "Lewis and Clarke's Travels" page 221, in the same high latitude as here, namely, in both cases, in 47 degrees.) On the arid plains a few black beetles (Heteromera) might be seen ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin

... cause of infertility, as with other fruits, is the impotency of pollen on the pistils of the same variety. There are a few cases in which pollen does not seem to be formed abundantly, but these are very few. There are a few cases, also, in which the pistil does not become receptive until after the pollen has lost its vitality; these, however, are very few. In a greater number of cases the pollen is found defective. However, dismissing all of these as the exception, the rule is that self-sterility is due, as has been said, ...
— Manual of American Grape-Growing • U. P. Hedrick

... ma'am,' said the Southerner, 'will you 'ave the goodness to lean back in your chair?' 'With the greatest pleasure,' said I, not knowin' what was a comin'. When what does my gentleman do but whips out an 'oss pistil as long as my harm, and shoots my left 'and neighbor dead! But that wasn't hall! for the bullet, comin' out of the left temple, wounded a lady in the side. She huttered an 'orrifick scream. 'Pon my word, ma'am,' said the Southerner, 'you needn't make so much ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various

... earliest flowers which appear, and may often be seen bursting through the snow, the virgin white of its petals by no means shamed by the lustrous purity of its cold bed. It has no calyx; six stamens; the filaments short and hair-like; the anthers oblong, with a bristly point, and one pistil, the style being cylindrical, and longer than the stamens. The capsule, which is nearly globular, contains three cells, in which are numerous globular seeds. It is found in orchards, meadows, and the sides of hedges, and named ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 427 - Volume 17, New Series, March 6, 1852 • Various

... for every integral part of an object, as head, limb, vertebra, heart, nerve, tendon; stalk, leaf, corolla, stamen, pistil; plinth, frieze, etc. (ii) A name for every metaphysical part or abstract quality of an object, and for its degrees and modes; as extension, figure, solidity, weight; rough, smooth, elastic, friable; the various colours, red, blue, yellow, in all their shades and combinations and ...
— Logic - Deductive and Inductive • Carveth Read

... consisting of coloured leaves called petals, which, however, like those of the Calyx, are often united into a tube; (3) of one or more stamens, consisting of a stalk or filament, and a head or anther, in which the pollen is produced; and (4) a pistil, which is situated in the centre of the flower, and at the base of which is the Ovary, containing ...
— The Beauties of Nature - and the Wonders of the World We Live In • Sir John Lubbock

... to purchase a popular illustrated book on this subject, preferably one in which the flowers are arranged according to color. We first learn, in the introduction, the principal parts of the flower, as the calyx, the corolla, the stamen and the pistil. We find that the arrangements of leaves and flowers are quite constant, that the leaves of some plants are opposite, of others alternate; of still others from the root only, that flowers are solitary, in raceme, head, ...
— Why Worry? • George Lincoln Walton, M.D.

... silly-wise book! And there will be other silly-wise books. Cinderella shall again lose her slipper, and marry the prince; the wolf shall again eat little Red Ridinghood; and the small eyes grow big at the adventures of Sinbad, the gallant tar. Will not this be better, Don Bob, than pistil and stamen and radicle? —than wearing out BBB lead pencils in drawing tumble-down castles, rickety cottages, and dumpling-shaped trees?—than acquiring a language which has no literature fit for a girl to read?—than mistressing the absurd modern ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various

... that the bee gathers pollen dust to feed the young bees and rear a queen, and that it exists to perpetuate its race. A botanist notices that the bee flying with the pollen of a male flower to a pistil fertilizes the latter, and sees in this the purpose of the bee's existence. Another, observing the migration of plants, notices that the bee helps in this work, and may say that in this lies the purpose of ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy

... "The pistil in many cases looks almost like a stamen without anthers, and the relationship between the formation of the two is much closer than between the other parts. In retrograde fashion nature often produces cases where the style and stigma ...
— A History of Science, Volume 4(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams

... upright, and bearing at the end a tuft of flowers which produce the fruit. The calyx, which is flat, green, and hairy, is divided into ten parts, called sepals, and there are five petals; the stamens, which are very numerous, and grow out of the calyx, are placed in a crowded ring round the pistil. This pistil consists of a number of carpels, arranged in many rows very regularly on a central receptacle; each carpel has a style, ending in a slightly-lobed stigma; and an ovary, wherein lies one single ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 462 - Volume 18, New Series, November 6, 1852 • Various

... yucca blossoms by a little moth, Pronuba yuccasella. This little moth has a sickle-shaped appendage to its mouth-parts which occurs hi no other Lepidopteron, and which is used for pushing the yellow pollen into the opening of the pistil, thus fertilising the flower. Thus it appears as if a new structure, which is useful only to the plant, has arisen in the insect. But the difficulty is solved as soon as we learn that the moth lays its eggs in the fruit-buds of the Yucca, and that ...
— Evolution in Modern Thought • Ernst Haeckel

... its own beauty; the gradual lighting up of the hills, night and the stars, firelight and the coals! To live on so, calmly, far from the paths of men; and to look at the lives of clouds and insects; to look deep into the heart of flowers, and see how lovingly the pistil and the stamens nestle there together; and to see in the thorn-pods how the little seeds suck their life through the delicate curled-up string, and how the little embryo sleeps inside! Well, how well, to sit so on one side taking no part in the ...
— The Story of an African Farm • (AKA Ralph Iron) Olive Schreiner

... individual; that neither being is of itself a whole, a unit, but each requires to be supplemented by the other before its true structural integrity can be achieved. Of this idea, the science of botany furnishes the moat perfect illustration. The stamens on the one hand, and the ovary and pistil on the other, may indeed reside in one blossom, which then exists in a married or reproductive state. But equally well, the stamens or male organs may reside in one plant, and the ovary and pistil or female organs may reside in another. In that case, the two plants are required ...
— Debate On Woman Suffrage In The Senate Of The United States, - 2d Session, 49th Congress, December 8, 1886, And January 25, 1887 • Henry W. Blair, J.E. Brown, J.N. Dolph, G.G. Vest, Geo. F. Hoar.

... potatoes they are. You will find these growing everywhere throughout California, blooming from May to July, their six long, slender, white petals shading to gold at the base, grayish on the outside, a pollen-laden pistil upstanding, eight or ten gold-clubbed stamens surrounding it, the slender brown stem bearing a dozen or more of these delicate blooms, springing high from a base of leaves sometimes nearly two feet long and an inch broad, wave margined, spreading in a circle around it. In the soil ...
— Her Father's Daughter • Gene Stratton-Porter

... to do with the origin of flowers, how is it that there are so few blue ones? I believe the explanation to be that all blue flowers have descended from ancestors in which the flowers were green; or, to speak more precisely, in which the leaves surrounding the stamens and pistil were green; and that they have passed through stages of white or yellow, and generally red, before becoming blue." - Sir John Lubbock in "Ants, ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan



Words linked to "Pistil" :   carpel, bloom, blossom, reproductive structure, flower



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