10 THE AMi-.RlCAX BUTTNIST 



business of the flower is to produce the pollen and ovules 

 whose contents, united, will give rise to a new plant. But we 

 must not hastily assume that nature is satisfied with pollen and 

 ovules from the same flower. Far from it. She has ten 

 thousand ways of securing pollen from distant flowers and pre- 

 venting the flower's own pollen from being used at home. 

 The two agents commonly depended on for transporting the 

 pollen are the wind and the insects. The wind works for noth- 

 ing but the insects have to be beguiled by nectar or extra pol- 

 len, and directed to these supplies by color, odor, nectar-guides 

 and properly shaped corollas. 



Wind-pollinated flowers are naturally dull-colored for 

 there is no use in wasting the refinements of color on anything 

 so unappreciative as the breeze. Such flowers produce large 

 amounts of pollen to insure that some at least will be borne 

 to the waiting carpels. The pollen is light in order to travel 

 long distances before coming to the earth and it is usually 

 scattered before the leaves are spread. Most of our early 

 spring flowers have this type of blossom. It appears clear, 

 then, that all our most beautiful flowers are in a very real 

 sense, presented to us by the insects. Not that the insects have 

 acted consciously in the matter, 1)ut it is certain that without 

 the insects, flowers would all have been much like those of the 

 pine, hazel, grass, cat-tails and alders. 



Flowers pollinated by the insects are more certain that 

 their pollen will go by the most direct route to other flowers 

 and therefore do not find it necessary to produce so great an 

 amount of pollen, but the problem is not as simple as this. 

 There are small creeping insects to be excluded for they would 

 only waste the pollen,. Wirious schemes must be devised to 

 secure the visits of the insects and get them well dusted with 

 pollen when they appear. Some flowers are run wide-open 



