MARRIAGE CUSTOMS OF PLANTS 
healthy offspring, though the marriage of still 
more divergent individuals is preferable. Plants 
like the Begonia, which bear single-sex flowers, 
often grow in somewhat isolated positions and 
sO must intermarry a great deal among them- 
selves. Staminate flowers at the top of a stalk 
can shower pollen over many female flowers 
growing below them. 
The exception always proves the rule, which 
explains why we find a few flowers which de- 
liberately choose to fertilize themselves. In 
the Fuchsia, the flower droops, throwing the 
long pistil below the stamens, which can read- 
ily drop pollen onto it. Minute hooks hold the 
petals of the Indigo and Lucerne partly closed 
until the flower is completely developed. When 
they give way, the petals fly back, so shaking the 
whole flower that the anthers shower pollen on 
the pistil. The single-sex flowers of the Aloe 
bend near each other at mating time. 
The Violets and Polygalas are also largely 
self-fertilizing. They are, therefore, borne 
under the leaves or close to the ground, where 
they attract little attention. 
The love and marriages in plantdom may 
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