196 STATE HOKTICULTUKAL SOCIETY. 



BEGINNING BOTANY. 



Prof. Beal chats with the readers of the Botanical Gazette about beghming 

 botany, as follows : 



I set a student on the very start to studying some natural object, as a plant,^ 

 a seed, a flower, a vine. He is asked to state to the class on the following day 

 what he has discovered. One of the first points is to teach him to see and to 

 become reliable and independent. To acquire tliis habit he is set to looking. 

 To help him he is often asked to compare two branches of different trees, or 

 two flowers of different species or genera, or two seeds or fruits. 



I require students to write out more or less their observations. For this 

 work credit is given, as well as for class recitations. This is not only done in 

 the botany class, but our professor of the English language finds such topics 

 among the best he can select for the practice of young students. Many of the 

 essays required are accompanied by drawings which help to explain certain 

 points. As an example of this work, I send a short paper prepared by a 

 member of the Freshman class. It must be remembered that he is a begin- 

 ner; that he used no books, but went to the plants to get his facts. He had 

 been studying plants for a few weeks. He had been referred to an elementary 

 book for some names. He had received some hints on some points from his 

 teacher while in the class-room. Of course he picked up more or less from his 

 classmates during recitations, in which they spoke of kindred topics: 



THE FERTILIZATION OF THE TRUMPET-CREEPER, BY GEORGE SPRANG. 



In the bud the calyx of the Trinn pet-Creeper is valvate and encloses the other 

 organs of the flower; the corolla is deeply imbricated, and covers the stamens and 

 pistil. 



Tlie anthers of the young flower are very large and of a bright yellow; they are 

 composed of two mealy sacks, which are slightly attached together, and fall back and 

 nearly cover the filament. 



As the flower grows and become larger, the anthers become smaller, until they are 

 only about one-third of their original size. 



In the bud the pistil is already quite tall, and has to take a stooping position, but 

 when the flower grows and opens, the pistil takes an upright position, and always 

 keeps above and out of the reacli of the stamens. 



Most flowers require crossing, and the arrangement of most of them is such as to 

 prevent self-fertilization and to insure crossing. 



The above example is the most common mode by which self-fertilization is 

 prevented, but this plant has other and more striking illustrations of this fact. 



The stigma is two-lobed, and is so sensitive that if anything touches it it imme- 

 diately closes, hence, when the humming bird, the principal means by which this 

 plant is fertilized, hovers over the flower and sticks its long proboscis down into the 

 tube, its head touches these lobes, and they close almost immediately and remain so 

 for a short time. 



The anther cells are now open and ready to shed pollen, and as the bird puts its 

 head further down into the tube, it hits these cells and the pollen is dusted upon it,^ 

 and flying back it hits the pistil again, but the stigma is closed and none of the 

 pollen can get in. 



But when it goes into the next flower the stigma is open, and the pollen is shed 

 upon its lips, sometimes so nnich as to be plainly seen by the naked eye. 



This process is repeated till the bird, tired of the meagre amount of honey it gets 

 for its labors, flies to some otiier plant, hoping for better success. 



This plant has an enemy in the black ant, which does not enter tlie flower at the 

 mouth, but eats through the calyx and corolla and sucks the honey which is laid up 

 for the attraction of the birds. Even if the ant did enter at the top and get pollen 

 upon it, it would immediately fall oft' from its smooth body and legs, and thus use up 

 the pollen which would be of no use to the iilant in its fertilization. 



But the plant's bright and gaudy corolla attracts the birds, and even if one does 

 not enter more than two or three flowers, j-et it enters enough to scatter the pollen 

 on some pistil and fertilize it. 



