BOTANICAL: THE UPPER CLASSES. 



161 



generation of the species. In some blossoms their 

 number is very great. It has been said that a single 

 plant of wisteria has produced 6,750,000 stamens, which, 

 supposing all to have been perfect, would have con- 

 tained 27,000 million pollen grains. It is from these 

 pollen grains that the bees, extracting the sweet matter 

 contained in them, make honey, wax, and poison, and, 

 by carrying the pollen of one t.c^_^___ 

 flower to another of the same 

 species, the object for which 

 the insect and the plant were 

 made to depend upon each 

 other for their existence is 

 accomplished. 



Here, then, you see the 

 pollen of the common mallow. 

 It grows by the river-side and 

 in the cemetery, or in brick- 

 fields. It is content with the 

 humblest localities. But be* 

 hold its glory ! One mass of 

 golden globes, studded with 

 minute booklets, so that it may 

 adhere to the substance for 

 whichitwascreated: can any- 



thing be more beautiful ? 



The pollen of one branch 

 of the family must penetrate the ovule of the other 

 branch before there can be blossom. Some years ago, 

 one of the Fellows of the Linnsean Society told me an 

 amusing story of the introduction of red clover into New 

 Zealand. The colonists knew that bees were necessary 

 to carry the pollen from one flower to another, so with 

 the seed they imported bees; but when the seed de- 



L 



figures below. 



Drawn from 



