i 9 6 



FARM FRIENDS AND FARM FOES 



cells for each style and stigma. You should see the in- 

 teresting nectar cup on the top of the ovary, on which 

 glistening drops of nectar may generally be found. 



SQUASH BLOSSOMS 



People are sometimes puzzled over the fact that cucum- 

 bers and squashes seem to have so many blossoms in pro- 

 portion to the number of fruits produced. 

 If you examine, however, the flowers 

 upon one of these plants, you will soon 

 be able to- tell the reason for this. You 

 will find that most of the flowers consist 

 CUCUMBER: POLLEN- only of sepals, petals, and stamens, and 

 BEARING FLOWER t ^^ guc ^ fl owers are easily recognized 



from a side view, by the fact that there 

 is below the blossom no little cucumber 

 or squash to develop later into a fruit. 

 These flowers are stamen-bearing orstam- 

 inate blossoms, and in general they are 

 smaller than the other kind of flowers 

 found upon the same plants, which con- 

 sist of sepals, petals, and a single pistil. 

 The ovary of the pistil which you will 

 recognize at once as a miniature cu- 

 cumber or squash is below the main blossom, but has a 

 style that runs up through the center of the flower and 

 bears upon its tip a well-developed stigma. These are the 

 seed-bearing or pistillate flowers. 



If you should cut open the ovary of one of these pistillate 

 flowers, you would find inside a large number of tiny seed- 

 like bodies called the ovules. In order that these ovules 

 may develop into seeds, it is necessary that some pollen 

 from the staminate blossoms should be placed upon the 



CUCUMBER : SEED- 

 BEARING FLOWER 



