224 GENERAL BOTANY 



connexion between the two is really the enormously 

 developed connective. 



THE ANTHER 



11. As an anther develops there are formed inside 

 it four hollow spaces, side by side, two in each lobe. 

 These can be seen quite easily with the naked eye, 

 in large anthers like those of CRINUM KIGELIA or 

 PASSIFLORA, if the sepals and petals be removed from 

 a young flower-bud a day or two before it would 

 naturally open, and the anthers be cut across with a 

 very sharp knife or razor. 



Inside these four spaces, there are produced a num- 

 ber of tiny spherical bodies (true cells) which can 

 be seen only with a microscope, and inside each of 

 these cells, there are again formed 'four others still 

 smaller. These grow larger and become the grains 

 of pollen. So that the pollen grains are at first, at 

 any rate, in sets of four. 



In time the four spaces, which since in them are 

 developed the pollen grains, are called pollen sacs 

 coalesce into two, so that in the mature anther we 

 find only two, one in each lobe. These spaces are 

 sometimes called cells. 



In by far the greater number of plants, the two 

 cells open along two lines, and so set free the 

 pollen, which is then scattered by the wind or taken 

 away by the bees, butterflies, and other insects that 

 can always be found hovering about flowers on a 

 warm sunny morning. 



In a few cases only, does the pollen escape from 

 one slit, the two cells becoming confluent into one. 



