132 



THE FIRST BOOK OF FARMING 



carriers for some of the flowers and the flowers in 

 turn feed them with sweet nectar. 



This gives us a hint as to one use of the corollas 

 which spreads out such broad, brightly-colored, 

 conspicuous petals. It must be that they are adver- 

 tisements or sign boards to attract the bees and to 

 tell them where they can find nectar and so lead 

 them unconsciously to carry pollen from flower to 

 flower to fertilize the pistils. The act of carrying 

 pollen to the pistil is called pollination, and carrying 

 pollen from the stamens of one flower to the pistil 

 of another flower is called cross pollination. 



If we examine a blossom bud just before it opens 

 we will see only the calyx. Everything else will be 

 wrapped up inside of it. Evidently, then, the calyx 

 is a protecting covering for the other parts of the 

 flower until blossoming time. 



The corolla will be found carefully folded within 

 the calyx and also helps protect the stamens and 

 pistil. 



Some flowers do not produce bright-colored corol- 

 las to attract the bees, for examples, the flowers of 

 the grasses, wheat, corn, and other grains, the wil- 

 lows, butternuts, elms, pines and others. But they 

 produce large amounts of pollen which is carried 

 by the wind to the pistils. 



You have sometimes noticed in the spring that 

 after a rain the pools of water are surrounded by a 

 ring of yellow powder and you have perhaps 

 thought it was sulphur. It was not sulphur but 

 was composed of millions of pollen grains from 



