SOME SIMPLE FLOWERS 21 



pollen, and Mr. Bug has his head or his back or his 

 legs "powdered with gold." His appetite is never 

 satisfied with the feast set in one flower, so off he 

 journeys into the next to devour its store. As he fum- 

 bles around, some of the pollen he carries is sure to 

 be rubbed on the stigma. The stigma, you know, is 

 the top of the pistil in which lie little cells waiting 

 for the pollen to convert them into seeds. 



In the Radish, the seeds grow very quickly. As 

 the pistil lengthens out into a purple-tinted pod, 

 they swell it out at regular intervals, making it re- 

 semble a string of beads. Do you think this con- 

 struction helps get the seeds scattered? Watch 

 them. The botanical name of the Radish, "Rapha- 

 nus," comes from two Greek words, "quickly" and 

 "appear." If you will watch the speed with which 

 the plant takes hold of a waste field, you will see 

 that it has lost none of its energy in the passing cen- 

 turies. ."Sativus" the name of this species, indicates 

 something "common." 



Run your fingers over the leaf of the Radish. 

 Taste it. Do not the feeling and the flavor suggest 

 to you why the plant is not eaten up when young 

 by the herb-eating animals? If a plant does not 

 protect itself from the ground up, it may lose its 

 opportunity of making seed; and no self-respecting 

 plant would do that. 



The pungency of the Radish that is disagreeable 



