Ch. XIV. | INFLORESCENCE. 79 



and pistils are on separate flowers, depends a little upon 

 chance, the favourable chances are so numerous that it is hardly 

 possible, in the order of nature, that a pistillate plant should 

 remain unfertilized. The particles of the pollen are light and 

 abundant, and butterflies, honey bees, and other insects, trans- 

 port them from flower to flower. The winds also assist in ex- 

 ecuting the designs of nature. 



325. The pollen of Pines and Firs, moved by winds, may 

 be seen rising like a cloud above the forests ; the particles be- 

 in<* disseminated, fall upon the pistillate flowers, and rolling 

 within their scaly envelopes, fertilize the germs. 



326. A curious fact is stated by an Italian writer, viz., that 

 at places about forty miles distant, grew two Palm trees, the 

 one without stamens, the other without pistils ; neither of them 

 bore seeds for many years ; but in process of time they grew s& 

 tall as to tower above all the objects near them. The wind 

 thus meeting with no obstruction, wafted the pollen from the 

 staminate to the pistillate flowers, which to the astonishment of 

 all, began to produce fruit. 



327. " Gardeners," says a botanical writer, " formerly at- 

 tempted to assist nature, by stripping off the infertile flowers 

 of melons and cucumbers, considering them as unnecessary 

 incumbrances, since they would never become fruit. But find- 

 ing that they then obtained no fruit at all, they soon learned 

 the wiser practice of admitting the winds to blow, and the in- 

 sects to transfer, the pollen of the infertile to the fruit-bearing 

 flowers." 



CHAPTER XIV. 



Inflorescence Receptacle * mil Ltnnceus' classificatwn 

 of Pericarps. 



328. We shall now proceed to consider tne various ways in 

 which flowers grew upon their stalks ; this is called their in- 

 florescence, or mode of flowering. 



&!5. What is -^iidot the pohen ui pines ana iuis'f 

 3'26. What fart is stated by an Italian writer ? 

 3*27. What is the effect of stripping olT the infertile or siamicate 

 flowers of plants'? 

 3-23. What is *x*eant by inflorescence 3 



