HOW PLANTS MARRY. 



8l 



of flowers possess these organs alone, without 

 any conspicuous petals or other coloured sur- 

 faces. 



However, if you take a pretty garden flower 

 (say a scarlet geranium) as a typical example, 

 and begin to examine it from the centre outward 

 (which is the truest 

 way), you will find 

 it consists of the 

 following parts, in 

 the following or- 

 der : — 



In the very cen- 

 tre of all comes the 

 pistil^ consisting of 

 one or more carpels, 

 and containing the 

 embryo seeds or 

 ovules (see Fig. 15). 

 Outside this part, 

 and next in order, 

 come the stamens^ 

 which are most of- 

 ten three or six in 

 one great group 

 of flowering plants 

 (the lilies), and five, 

 ten, or more in the 

 other (the roses and 

 buttercups). The 

 stamens produce 

 grains of pollen 

 which somehow or other, either by means of the 

 wind, or of insects, or of movements on the part 

 of the plant itself, are sooner or later applied to 

 the sensitive surface or stigma of the pistil. As 

 6 



Fig. 16. — Grains of pollen, very much 

 magnified, sending out pollen-tubes. 



