Blossom and Seed 169 



when it is taking long journeys to and fro, it needs some- 

 thing more nutritious to make up for the waste occasioned 

 by so much muscular exercise, and it eats pollen, besides 

 carrying it home to make bee-bread for the young grubs. 



But our concern now is with the ovules, the possible 

 seeds, lying inclosed in the ovary at the base of the pistil, 

 while the pollen, which is to make seeds of them, is in the 

 anther-sacs above, and as it would seem, out of and 

 beyond their reach. The question is, how are the two to 

 be brought together? 



In describing the primrose, we mentioned that the top 

 of the pistil ends in a knob; and this knob is a matter of 

 great importance. It is called the stigma, and is of all 

 sorts of different shapes in different flowers; sometimes 

 merely a point, sometimes large and divided into lobes, 

 sometimes feathery, as in most of the grasses; but what- 

 ever its shape, it has no covering of outer skin, as the 

 stalk on which it is borne has, and it is more or less 

 sticky, and often crowned with a bead of nectar. This 

 bead is so large in some plants — as, for instance, the white 

 lily — that it may be taken oft'; and if then a few grains of 

 pollen from the anther be sprinkled upon it, we shall see 

 that these will in about half an hour begni to swell and 

 grow. Each grain will put forth a slender tube, very mi- 

 nute, of course; but in an hour or two it will have length- 

 ened out, and the fluid contained in the pollen-grain may 

 be seen passing down one side of the tube and up the 

 other. Pollen-grains may also be grown in a solution of 

 gum or sugar. 



Now this is exactly what takes place when pollen falls 

 upon the sticky stigma at the tip of the pistil, only that 

 instead of growing in an objectless way, each grain sends 



