The Golden Rule for Flowers 209 



adapted for catching and holding the grains of pollen 

 blown upon them, for they are either divided into 

 plumes or feathers, or are plentifully beset with hairs. 

 Grasses and sedges are chiefly wind-fertilized ; and so, 

 too, are many trees, such as the oak, beech, hazel, 

 birch, elm, poplar and pine, all of which blossom early 

 in the year, often before there are any leaves to inter- 

 fere with the scattering of the pollen ; and they mostly 

 bear pollen and ovules in separate blossoms, some on 

 the same tree, some on different trees. 



The pollen-bearing, or staminate blossoms of these 

 trees grow together in large numbers, in the form of 

 tassels or catkins, which wither and drop when their 

 pollen is scattered and their work done. 



The catkins of the hazel contain more than a 

 hundred blossoms, having no petals, but ten or twelve 

 stamens each. The blossoms containing the ovules 

 grow on the same tree, but they have no petals either, 

 and are so small as almost to escape notice, for they 

 look like nothing but small scaly buds, with tiny crim- 

 son tufts on the top. These crimson tufts are the 

 stigmas, outspread on purpose to catch the grains of 

 pollen as they float by. 



Pines, on the other hand, have not only no petals, 

 but no pistil-stalks, and not even stigmas either; all 

 that there is of the pistil being the ovary, which is 

 scale-shaped and open, so that the pollen falls directly 

 upon the ovules within it. As the ovules develop into 

 seeds and grow, the scales that bear them grow also, 

 and ripen into fir-cones. 



Pollen which has to be carried by the wind is light, 

 dry and powdery, and is produced in very large quanti- 



14 



