Fig. 299. Stamen of Globe Amaranth; very short filament bearing a single anther-cell; it is open from top to bottom, showing the pollen within.
Fig. 300-305. Stamens of several plants of the Labiate or Mint Family. Fig. 300. Of a Monarda: the two anther-cells with bases divergent so that they are transverse to the filament, and their contiguous tips confluent, so as to form one cell opening by a continuous line. Fig. 301. Of a Calamintha: the broad connective separating the two cells. Fig. 302. Of a Sage (Salvia Texana); with long and slender connective resembling forks of the filament, one bearing a good anther-cell; the other an abortive or poor one. Fig. 303. Another Sage (S. coccinea), with connective longer and more thread-shaped, the lower fork having its anther-cell wholly wanting. Fig. 304. Of a White Sage, Audibertia grandiflora; the lower fork of connective a mere vestige. Fig. 305. Of another White Sage (A. stachyoides), the lower fork of connective suppressed.
291. But anthers may become one-celled, and that either by confluence or by suppression.
292. By confluence, when the two cells run together into one, as they nearly do in most species of Pentstemon (Fig. [297]), more so in Monarda (Fig. [300]), and completely in the Mallow (Fig. [298]) and all the Mallow family.
293. By suppression in certain cases the anther may be reduced to one cell or halved. In Globe Amaranth (Fig. [299]) there is a single cell without vestige of any other. Different species of Sage and of the White Sages of California show various grades of abortion of one of the anther-cells, along with a singular lengthening of the connective (Fig. [302-305]).
294. The splitting open of an anther for the discharge of its pollen is termed its Dehiscence.