LUTHER BURBANK 
Once planted there, the pollen grain begins to 
throw out a downward shoot, into and through 
the pistil stalk—forming itself into a tube which, 
extending and extending, finally taps the egg 
chamber and makes possible a union between 
the nucleus of that pollen grain and the egg below 
which awaits its coming. 
So, to produce a new geranium we have but 
to dust the grains of pollen upon the sticky stigma 
of that central pistil stalk; and when the flower 
has withered away, its duty done, we shall find 
within the egg chamber a package of fertile 
geranium seed ready for planting. 
But there arises, now, a difficulty. While those 
little packages of pollen dust are there, the central 
pistil stalk inside keeps shut up tight, and it has 
no sticky surface on which to dust the pollen. 
And if we search for another blossom which 
shows an open, sticky pistil, we shall find that the 
pollen packages which once surrounded it have 
gone. 
To make our combination between the pollen 
grains and the egg-like seeds, therefore, we find 
it necessary to search first for one blossom which 
is in its pollen-bearing stage, and then for another 
blossom which has passed this point and shows 
a receptive sticky stigma—we are forced to make 
[72] 
