Crocuses 3 i 



ensure enough for Nature's needs, after a large 

 proportion has been blown or washed away. 



The wind-fertilized flowers of the poplar shed so 

 much pollen that it may be seen, on breezy spring 

 days, blowing from the branches in light clouds. 

 And at one time in the summer the floating pollen 

 of the eel-grass, and of some other pond weeds, is 

 spread in sheets over the surface of still water. 

 It has been shed by those aquatic flowers which 

 blow at the surface of the water. There are other 

 aquatic blossoms which expand beneath the sur- 

 face. Their pollen grains are of much the same 

 weight, bulk for bulk, as the surrounding water, 

 so that they will neither float nor sink, but will 

 remain poised at about the level of the flower 

 they seek. And the individual pollen grains of 

 such blossoms are often long and narrow in form, 

 so that they cut their way through the water, as 

 does a modern ocean greyhound. 



Wind-fertilized flowers are adapted in various ways 

 to their chosen assistants, the breezes. They have, 

 for the most part, enormously developed stigmas, 

 which project in the form of tails or brushes. The 

 pollen of such flowers is light and dry, that it may 

 blow easily, and the brush-like stigmas are covered 

 with points or hairs which catch it as it flies past. 



