82 PICTURING MIRACLES 



the portion of their pollen not already gathered by 

 insects, and then drop off. After all the male buds 

 have fallen, the female buds, the embryo cocoanuts, 

 now about marble size and usually fourteen in num- 

 ber, send out their tiny pistils about one sixteenth of 

 an inch and, because all the pollen-bearing buds are 

 gone, they must depend on pollen from some other 

 blossom on perhaps a distant tree, carried to it by 

 the wind or honey bees. 



Thus the cocoanut protects itself from self-pollen- 

 ization and the dangers of inbreeding, which would 

 be as disastrous to it in plant life as it is in animal 

 life. 



The honey bee is the flower's best friend. Instinct 

 has taught this fuzzy buzzing creature to work on 

 flowers of the same kind continuously, while the 

 butterfly flits from blossom to blossom, regardless 

 or careless of how she spends her short life. The busy 

 bee works from dawn to dusk, storing her home with 

 honey and pollen food for her young. The flower is 

 her source of supply and to attract the bee in this 

 mutual benefit partnership, she dresses herself in 

 beautiful sweet-scented raiment, and as her whole life 

 struggle is dependent on receiving just a few of those 

 golden globes of pollen, she spreads her richest food, 

 her honey, behind her own less attractive pollen and 

 stigma. So the greedy bee, anxious for the best food 



