THE FLOWER AND ITS PARTS 101 
number of carpels may vary very largely. Further, they 
may all be separate, as in the Buttercup; or they may 
be fused together, as in the Tiger Lily. In any case, the 
structure is divided into three parts by botanists. At 
the bottom is the ovary, which, when fertilised and ripe, 
we know as the seed-vessel, e.g. a pea-pod, or a rose-hip. 
Within this ovary are the “ovules.” These are small 
preparations ready to become seeds when fertilised. 
From the ovary the carpels rise up in pillars, either in 
many or all in one, according to the habit of the plant; 
and these pillars, or pillar, are known as the styles or 
style. At the summit they broaden out into a knob of 
varying shape, and this knob is called the stigma, or point. 
I want you to remember these names, for we shall often 
meet them, and it is a good deal easier to talk each time 
of the “stigma” than “the upper end of the pistil.” 
Now we have our two machines all ready. The 
stamens have produced their pollen-grain, and the carpels 
have prepared the ovules down below. The great 
problem, and the great interest to us, of all the flowering 
plants lies in the securing of the union of the two, and 
the various devices adopted by the plants to bring it 
about. Unless the two can be made to meet, both the 
pollen and the ovules will die without doing anything 
to make another generation. At first sight it would 
seem impossible, for the ovules are deep down in the 
heart of the seed-vessel, and the pollen is wandering 
about outside. Both machines, however, make an effort. 
When the ovules below are ready, the stigma changes 
its appearance a little, and becomes sticky. Now is the 
time for the pollen-grain, and we may imagine that we 
notice a stigma upon which one of the grains has fallen. 
How it got there we shall consider later in the chapter. 
