POLLENIZATION 83 



first, pushes by the less tasty morsels and in so doing 

 pays in advance for her honey by possibly brushing 

 off a few of those life-giving globes carried from some 

 other blossom onto the receptive stigma. 



The act accomplished, the price paid, life goes on 

 to another stage. The flower wilts, it sheds its beau- 

 tiful scented garments, and petal by petal, they fall 

 to the ground unheeded, their destiny fulfilled. In 

 some forms, the entire bell-shaped blossom, leaving 

 the pistil alone, apparently dies we say; in reality it 

 goes to sleep, to begin life in another form, passing 

 on into another stage. In the dark of the hidden 

 parts of the blossom, life, microscopically small, 

 starts its link in the chain. The pollen grains absorb 

 moisture from the sweetened "secretion" in the 

 stigma. They germinate; the pollen tube as a chan- 

 nel for the male nucleus, grows down the pistil 

 which may be microscopic, or over a foot in length. 

 It may take it hours or even weeks but it persists 

 toward its goal. The journey ended, the growing 

 tube disintegrates, the nucleus escapes and mingles 

 with the female nucleus and these two masses min- 

 gling, just as though they were boiling and stirred 

 by an unseen necromancy, finally round up into the 

 fertile seed. 



For every fertile seed in the fruit or the often in- 

 numerable ones in the pod, a pollen grain must be 



(AilY 



