CHAPTER IV 



POLLEN, OR FLOWER-DUST 



EVERY one who has smelt a large white lily is 

 familiar with the yellow dust which he gets upon 

 his nose ; but not every one is aware that in this 

 proceeding he has usurped and misconducted the 

 function of the bee. If the man with the yellow 

 nose would wander about the garden, smelling 

 other lilies, he might be almost as useful as a bee 

 or a fly ; for he would convey the male pollen- 

 dust of one flower to the female organ of the 

 next, and so ensure cross-fertilisation, which is so 

 essential to the welfare of plants. Man, however, 

 has no purpose to serve by making himself 

 ridiculous in this way ; so he desists. But the 

 bee, who gains a draught of nectar from each 

 lily-bloom, goes on and on, until he has married 

 all the full-blown lilies in the garden to each 

 other. 



For the first fact which we have to realise in 

 order to understand the life of plants is that 

 amongst flowers sex exists as much as among 



