16 



chaff} and an ovule with an elongated style (called silk in 

 corn), which grows attached to the ovule's tip. The tip of 

 the style, or silk, is the stigma, which is the roughened, 

 sticky surface to which pollen grains may adhere when they 

 fall upon it. 



13. The seed. From a pollen grain which has fallen on the 

 stigma there grows downward through the style a very small 



FIG. 11. Two branches from the tassel bearing staminate flowers 



tube (the pollen tube), which finally reaches the interior of the 

 ovule, where there is a very small egg. This egg is fertilized 

 by its union with a smaller body carried by the pollen tube, 

 and from the result of this fertilization a new embryo corn 

 plant develops within the ovule. While still within the de- 

 veloping ovule, or seed, this young plant produces its root 

 tip and stem tip ; in corn and other grass seeds there is a 

 special structure (scutellum) by means of which the embryo 



