THE FLOWER AND THE BEE 



A few grasses bloom in the afternoon, but the majority open 

 in the earher part of the day, many at sunrise or a Httle later. 

 Let us go out into the fields at four o'clock on a morning early in 

 July. The sun has not yet appeared above the horizon, but a 

 clear sky betokens a fair day. There is hardly a breath of wind, 

 and so still is the air that 



"One might well hear the opening of a flower." 



There is a legend that in ancient Egypt when the first rays 

 of the rising sun fell on the gigantic statue of Memnon, of which 

 only a shattered fragment now remains, there issued from it 

 a sound which was believed to be the voice of the god. But it 

 is a nobler greeting, the actual culmination of their life cycle, 

 with which the flowering grasses welcome the great source of 

 life and light. 



The eastern sky has long been tinged with red, and at last 

 the sun appears above the hills and its beams overflow the 

 world. With the gradually rising temperature the glumes, or 

 bracts, which protect the grass-flowers, separate and the an- 

 thers protrude, pushed out by the rapidly lengthening fila- 

 ments, which grow several millimetres in a few minutes. At a 

 quarter before five the stamens, which attain their full length 

 in about fifteen minutes, of the common herd's-grass {Phleum 

 pratense) are fully grown. (Fig. 11.) The anthers are ver- 

 satile or delicately hinged at their centres so that they hang 

 perpendicularly downward. At the lower end of each anther a 

 narrow slit appears, which slowly extends upward, the ends of 

 the anther becoming spoon-shaped to prevent the too rapid 

 escape of the pollen. A slight breeze is stirring. From time 

 to time little clouds of pollen-dust are shaken out, which de- 

 scend diagonally to the ground, not infrequently without effect- 

 ing pollination. In an hour's time nearly all the spikes had 



32 



