HOW PLANTS MARRY. 



77 



Fig 



15- 



not so much a single individual as a community 

 or colony. 



A hive of bees will help you to understand 

 this difficult paradox. I know it is difficult; but, 

 if only you will face it, it will throw floods of 

 Hght in due time on parts of our subject we must 

 consider hereafter. 

 So let us look at it 

 close. A hive is a 

 community. It con- 

 sists for the most 

 part of workers, 

 who are practically 

 neither male nor fe- 

 male. They are 

 neuters, as we say ; 

 and their main work 

 is to find food for 

 the whole hive, in- 

 cluding themselves 

 and the grubs or 



larvae which are the young of the species. But, in 

 addition to these workers, the hive has a queen, 

 who is the only perfect female, or mother, and who 

 lays the eggs from which the larvae are produced ; 

 and it has also several drones, who are the males 

 of the community, and fathers of the larvae. Thus 

 we have a colony or city, as it were, consisting of 

 a few males, a single female, and a whole body of 

 worker or feeder neuters. 



Now, a higher plant, like a cherry-tree (to 

 take a particular example), is just such a colony 

 or joint community. The leaves, each of which 

 is a distinct and almost self-supporting individual, 

 are its workers and feeders. Like the worker 

 bees, too, the leaves are neuters — neither true 



flower, with its petals re- 

 moved. Outside are five stamens, 

 which produce pollen : in the centre 

 is the pistil, which contains the 

 ovules or young seeds. 



