28 MYSTERIES OF THE FLOWERS 



flowers are yet marked with strong character, and 

 while possessing little beauty are yet not devoid of 

 ingenuity in mechanism. 



We will now proceed to examine as many as 

 possible of the other class. 



MONCECIOUS FLOWERS 

 THE GOURD FAMILY 



One of my childish delights in the garden was 

 to plant, each year, a few gourd seeds and watch 

 the vines climb rapidly, and wonder what strange 

 variety and quaint form of fruit they would give 

 me ; and thus I discovered that certain flowers bore 

 no fruit at all, while others, with a very evident 



"set" below the bud, 

 were sure to develop 

 into gourds. Thus I 

 learned to know the 

 "sterile" from the "fer- 

 tile" blossoms, or the 



SQUASH-BLOSSOM n i ,1 



pollen bearers from the 



seed bearers. By the same token I learned that 

 the gourd family was very susceptible of cross- 

 fertilisation, even between different varieties, for 

 by planting the seeds from a favourite little bottle- 

 gourd, of dainty form and colour, the following 



