10 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1879 



microscope to consist of minute grains of characteristic shape, 

 size, and markings. The pistil is made up of one or more car- 

 pels, distinct or more or less completely blended together, and 

 usually comprises three parts : (i) the ovary, holding the 

 ovules ; (2) the style, surmounting the ovary ; and (3) the 

 stigma, a point, or knob, or line of sticky surface at the side or 

 summit of the style. The style may be wholly wanting. 

 When the pollen acts upon the stigma, each grain may send 

 down, after a time, a slender tube, which at last reaches an 

 ovule. Here the contents of the tube act in some way upon 

 the contents of a cell, or a group of cells, in the ovule, in 

 which a new development begins, ending in the production of 

 an embryo plant. The ripened ovule is a seed ; the ripened 

 ovary, with its contents, and often with some of its contiguous 

 parts adherent, constitutes the fruit." It would seem, there- 

 fore, at first sight, as if flowers, in order to perfect seeds most 

 readily, ought to be so constructed that the pollen can fall upon 

 or reach the stigma without any difificulty. In some flowers, 

 like the late and small flowers of our violets, and in a great 

 many other cases, this is so : the pollen is placed by the anther 

 directly upon the stigma, or the stamen is so placed that the 

 pollen can very easily fall upon the stigma. But there are 

 innumrerable instances of just the opposite ; and in these cases 

 the tansfer of the pollen must be made by the wind, by 

 insects, or by some agent. Some plants have the stamens only, 

 while others of the same species liave only the pistils. Willows 

 are good examples of this kind of separation. Indian Corn is 

 an example of a less complete separation. In this, the flowers 

 with stamens form the plume above, and the pistils make up 

 the ears with the silk (the styles and stigmas) below. The 

 transfer of the pollen of Indian Corn is made by the wind, 

 which can carry such dry dust to long distances. The pollen of 

 our forest trees and shrubs is transferred by the same means, 

 and it frequently falls by the way, collecting in large quantities 

 on the leeward shores of lakes, where it resembles sulphur. 

 There are many cases of separation of the stamens and pistil, 

 which are just as complete as Willow and Indian Corn, so far 

 as the possibility of the pollen reaching the stigma without 

 help is concerned ; and yet the stamens and pistils are in the 

 very same flower. For instance, in some orchids the pollen is 

 packed away in a little pocket, from which it cannot fail to 

 reach the stigma, but from which it is readily detached by the 

 insect which comes to the flower in search of nectar. The 



