FLOWERS I ; ? 



- , O O 



flowers. One spring Sunday I laid my hat on the 

 seat in church. When I picked it up at the end of 

 the service I found considerable dust on it. I 

 brushed the dust off, but on reaching home I found 

 some remaining and noticed that is was yellow, so 

 I examined it with a magnifying glass and found 

 that it was nearly all pollen grains. Then I rubbed 

 my finger across a shelf in my room and found it 

 slightly dusty ; the magnifying glass showed me 

 that this dust was half pollen. This shows what a 

 great amount of pollen is produced and discharged 

 into the air, and it shows that very few pistils could 

 escape even if they were under cover of a building. 



To make sure of cross pollination nature has in 

 some cases placed the stamens and pistils in dif- 

 ferent flowers on the same plant. This will be 

 found true of the flowers of the squashes, melons 

 and cucumber. Below some of the flower buds will 

 be seen a little squash, melon or cucumber (Fig. 

 75). These are the ovaries of pistils and the stig- 

 mas will be found within the bud or will be seen 

 when the bud opens. But no stamen will be found 

 here. Other flowers on these plants will be found 

 to possess only stamens. These staminate flowers 

 produce pollen and then die. They do not produce 

 any fruit, but their pollen is necessary for the little 

 cucumbers, squashes and melons to develop. 



Another example is the corn plant. Here the pis- 

 tils are on the ear, the corn silk being the styles and 

 stigmas, while the pollen is produced in the tassel 

 at the top of the plant. 



