INFLORESCENCE AND FLOWERS—FRUIT AND SEED 123 
number of stamens; the former are covered with short 
hairs. 
Each of the stamens consists of a slender thread 
(filament) bearing on its top a four-chambered swollen 
anther. This contains a yellow dust, the pollen, com- 
posed of round grains (pollen grains), each with three 
thinner spots in its otherwise thick wall. Each of these 
pollen grains consists of a membrane enclosing nucleated 
protoplasm and food materials. When ripe the wind 
blows the pollen as it scatters from the dangling stamens, 
and some of the grains reach the stigmas of the female 
flowers; here they germinate, each pollen grain sending 
a delicate pollen tube down the style into the ovary of 
the flower. This process of application of the pollen 
grains to the stigma is termed pollination, and depends 
on the wind. 
The female inflorescences are also spikes (fig. 32, ), 
but they bear only one to five flowers, and stand off from 
the axils of the foliage leaves. Inthe commonest English 
variety (Q. pedunculata) the spikes are rather long, ob- 
liquely erect, and the flowers are scattered on the upper 
end of the rachis of the spike; in other varieties the 
flowers are more clustered in the axils of the leaves. 
Here, as in one or two other details, minute differences 
are apparent in different individuals; similar trifling 
differences are met with in the structure of the male 
flowers. 
Each female flower springs (like the male) from the 
axil of a small bract ; in other respects it is very unlike 
