CHAPTER LXI 



POLLEN 



' T X a few days, even in a few hours, a flower 

 A withers. Pistils, stamens, calyx, fade and die. 

 Only one thing survives : the ovary, which will be- 

 come fruit. 



"Now, in order to outlive the other parts of the 

 flower and remain on its stem when all the rest dries 

 up and falls, the ovary, at the moment when blos- 

 soming is at its greatest vigor, receives a supple- 

 ment of strength, I should almost say a new life. 

 The magnificence of the corolla, its sumptuous col- 

 orings, its perfumes, serve to celebrate the 

 solemn moment when this new vitality 

 comes to the ovary. This great act accom- 

 j)lishrl, the flower has had its day. 



lk \\ VU, it is the pollen, the yellow dust of 

 thr stamens, tlmt .uivos this increase of en- 

 eriry without which the nascent seeds would 

 perish in the ovary, itself withered. It falls 

 from the stamens on to the stigma, always 

 coated with a stickiness apt to hold it ; and 

 from the stigma, it makes its mysterious ac- <$ 

 tion felt in the depths of the ovary. Ani- "j^; 1 ' 

 mated with new life, the nascent seeds de- 

 velop rapidly, while the ovary swells so as to give 

 them necessary room. The lin.il result of this in- 

 comprehensible travail is the fruit, with its contents 



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