6io Handbook of Nature-Study 



5 . Where is the stigma ? Does the bee's tongue go over it or under it 

 to reach the nectar? Describe the pansy arrangement for dusting the bee 

 with pollen and for getting pollen from her tongue. 



6. Observe the soft little brushes at the base of the two side petals. 

 What do you think they are for? 



7. Take a fading flower; remove the petals, and see the little man 

 sitting with his crooked legs in the nectar-tube. What part of the flower 

 makes the man's head? What parts form his cape? Of what is his 

 pointed, scalloped collar formed? 



8. How many sepals has the pansy? Describe them. How are they 

 attached? When the flower fades and the petals fall, do the sepals also 

 fall? 



9. Where in the flower is the young seed-pod? Describe how this 

 looks after the petals have fallen. 



10. Describe how the seed-pod opens. How many seeds are there in 

 it ? How are they scattered ? 



11. Study the pansy stem. Is it solid? Is it smooth or rough? Is it 

 curved? Does it stand up straight or partially recline on the ground? 



12. Take a pansy leaf and sketch it with the stipules at its base. 

 Can you find two pansy leaves exactly alike in shape, color and size? 



13 . At what time should the pansy seed be planted ? How should the 

 soil be prepared ? 



Supplementary reading -"April Fools" (p. 50), "Pansy Song" (p. 125), 

 Nature in Verse, compiled by Mary J. Love joy; "Garden Folk" (p. 179), 

 "Pansies" pp. 183-184, Among Flowers and Trees with the Poets, Wait & 

 Leonard; "A Yellow Pansy" (p. 124), Nature Pictures by American Poets 

 compiled by Annie Russell Marble. 



/ dropped a seed into the earth. It grew, and the plant was mine. 



It was a wonderful thing, this plant of mine. I did not know its name, and the plant 

 did not bloom. All I know is that I planted something apparently as lifeless as a grain of 

 sand and there came forth a green and living thing unlike the seed, unlike the soil in which it 

 stood, unlike the air into which it grew. No one could tell me why it grew, nor how. It had 

 secrets all its own, secrets that baffle the wisest men; yet this plant was my friend. It faded 

 when I withheld the light, it wilted when I neglected to give it water, it flourished when I sup- 

 plied its simple needs. One week I went away on a vacation, and when I returned the plant 

 was\dead; and I missed it. 



Although my little plant had died so soon, it had taught me a lesson; and the lesson is 

 that it is worth while to have a plant. THE NATURE-STUDY IDEA, L. H. BAILEY. 



