POLLEN-CARRYING 



visited them. Bees, butterflies, and ordinary flies appeared 

 upon the scene just as soon as there were flowers ready for 

 them. Mr. Scudder has even found the fossils of certain 

 plants, and with them the fossils of butterflies closely allied 

 to the present butterflies which now live on present trees 

 allied to those fossils ! 



How then was the pollen of the first flowers carried ? 



It was in all probability blown by the wind or carried in 

 water. Even now poplars, alders, birches, and oaks rely chiefly 

 upon the wind to carry their pollen. These plants were 

 amongst the first of our modem flora to appear upon the 

 earth. Some of them possess very neat contrivances suited 

 to the wind. The catkins of the alder, for example, hang 

 downwards, so that each little male flower is protected from 

 rain by a little scale or bract above it. The pollen is very 

 light, dusty, or powdery, so as to fly a long distance. The 

 Scotch fir {Pinus sylvestris) has male flowers in little cones. 

 These are upright, and the pollen of each stamen drops on 

 to a small hollow on the top of the stamen below. It is 

 then blown away by the wind on a fine dry day, but it is not 

 allowed to get out in wet weather. It is said that vast 

 clouds of pine pollen occur in America, and that the water 

 of certain lakes becomes quite yellow and discoloured by it 

 at certain seasons. Each little particle of pollen has two 

 minute caps or air-balloons which give it buoyancy, so that 

 it can float easily immense distances. 



A curious little herb, the Wall Pellitory, and another 

 foreign species, the Artillery plant, produces small explosions 

 of pollen. When it is touched, there is a little puff" or 

 cloud of dusty pollen. Even the common Nettle does the 

 same on fine dry days when it is in full flower. 



But of course this carrying of pollen by the wind is a 



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