THE FLOWER AND ITS PARTS 103 
seed-leaves. Nor is this all that the parent plant is 
ready to do for them. . Various parts of the seed-vessel 
become rich and juicy, fulfilling a double end. On the 
one hand, they attract birds which may plant them far 
afield; and on the other, which is more important, they 
help towards a fertile soil, for the juicy envelope will rot 
away, and the young plants find in it the food they need 
all ready for them. 
It has been seen with what an array of covering the 
essential organs of the plant are protected in their early 
days, but the problem becomes more difficult 
when the flower is opened. The pollen- 
grains and the ovules are the valuables in 
the safe, and the ovules always stay in it; 
but the pollen, as we have seen, has to take 
an adventurous journey, and is particularly 
liable to get damaged en route. Even in 
favourable circumstances its fertilising 
power does not last for very long after it or; en-Grarvys 
has left the anthers. Where it has been 
carefully preserved from damage, its power may last for 
perhaps a month or more, but its life is much shorter under 
natural conditions. Its greatest enemy is water, either in 
the form of rain or dew, and against this foe all kinds of 
plant devices are to be noted. Excessive moisture may 
cause the grains to burst prematurely, or may really drown 
the protoplasm within. Some flowers are protected by their 
shape. The graceful drooping bell-flowers allow the rain 
to drop harmlessly off the outside of the corolla, and one 
may see other plants imitate their example when rain is 
coming on. The flower-stalk bends the head, as in the 
Seabious (or “Devil's Bit,’ from its blunt root), for 
example, bends down towards the earth, and the rain- 
