n6 



Gardening 



This is the pollen, and under 

 the microscope it is seen to 

 be made up of very small 

 rounded bodies which are 

 called pollen grains or micro- 

 spores. The anthers are, 

 therefore, sacs that contain 

 minute spores. 



The enlarged base of the 

 pistil is called the ovary. If 

 this is slit open and examined, 

 small rounded bodies, much 

 smaller than the anthers, will 

 be found in it. These are the 

 ovules. At first each ovule 

 contains a single spore and is 

 thus a spore sac like the 

 anther. The spore, however, 

 is not released but remains 

 within the ovule, and from it 

 there develops a cell called the egg cell. In some flow- 

 ers the ovules are so small that they are hard to see, 

 but in the young fruits the ovules which are becoming 

 seeds are easily seen with the naked eye. 



Pollination. In nearly all plants the pistils will 

 wither and drop off unless pollen from the same kind of 

 plant or from. closely related plants is placed on the 

 end of each pistil ; that is, on the stigma. 



In some garden plants like corn, cucumber, and 

 squash, the anthers with their pollen and the pistils 

 with their ovules are in separate flowers, and the pollen 



FIG. 68. The pistil of a bean 

 flower at the stage when fertil- 

 ization occurs; magnified about 

 5 times. A portion of the outer 

 wall of the ovary is cut away to 

 show the ovules in place. On the 

 stigma and on the brush of hairs 

 near the stigma are several pollen 

 grains, and a black line shows the 

 course of a pollen tube through 

 the pistil to the first ovule. 



