SOMEISUMMER FLOWERS 



Do you not see how easily one of the insect's legs may be 

 caught in a slit? As he tries to rise and free himself, the 

 leg will be brought against the roof of the little chamber 

 into which it has slipped, and strangely enough this roof is 

 the stigma. One might easily fail to make out just what is 

 stigma in this case, but the ovaries and styles of the two 

 little bottle-shaped pistils within the chamber are easily 

 seen ; and, as a matter of fact, the upper part of the cham- 

 ber is moist and ready to receive pollen. If, then, the 

 insect's leg has pollen on it, the pollen will be landed on the 

 stigma. 



But where does the flower keep its pollen ? Notice a 

 little black dot above each slit. As the insect's leg is 

 pulled up and out, it is drawn under this dot. Put a pin 

 under it and lift gently. A pin is much smoother than an 

 insect's leg, but it is likely to pull out a pair of yellow bags 

 fastened to this dot. These bags, No. 4, Fig. 66, are 

 masses of pollen, and if the insect that pulls them out on 

 his leg is more hungry than cautious, he will visit other 

 flowers, and he is likely to leave the pollen bags against a 

 stigma when the same leg gets caught again. A single 

 bag consists of enough pollen grains to fertilize many seeds. 

 Of course the bee may not get the same leg caught again, 

 or the pollen bags may not be broken off. If you catch 

 bees that are visiting milkweed flowers, and with a little 

 patience you can, you are almost sure to find one or more 

 pairs of pollen masses on their legs. Sometimes the bees 

 are too weak to withdraw their legs, and so are caught, and 

 die on the flowers, and very often they accumulate so many 

 of the masses that they are disabled and die ; so the bee- 

 keepers do not like to have the milkweed in bee-pastures. 



Now, with the pollen so rudely snatched from its 

 guests, the ugly milkweed makes the daintiest seeds you 

 can find; so exquisite they are, that it is impossible to 

 sketch them worthily. But you can keep watch of the 



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