. 

 28 THE VEGETABLE KINGDOM. 



centre of the flower, having from one to many styles, the 

 upper part of which is called the stigma. The base of the 

 pistil, which is swollen and round, is the ovary. Cut it open 

 with a penknife or lancet, and you will see tiny white cells 

 on either side, which are the rudiments or beginning of the 

 future seed. The pollen fructifies each seed whilst growing 

 in the ovary, and the way in which it is accomplished has 

 only of late years been discovered. 



The stamens are filaments bearing at the top single or 

 double caskets, called anthers, full of pollen-grains. "When 

 a flower first opens the anthers are closed all round ; but as 

 soon as the air and the light have perfected the pistil and 

 caused it to secrete a kind of gum, or viscid liquid, on the 

 surface of its stigma, intended to hold fast the pollen-grain, 

 the anthers open and the golden dust appears, falling on 

 the ready channel which conveys it to the ovary beneath. 

 The pollen-grain itself is not a simple cell, as we might at 

 first suppose : minute as it is, there are many cells therein, 

 and a subtle fluid, called fovilla, which is in reality the life- 

 giving principle to the ovule. When a pollen-grain falls 

 upon the stigma it presently opens one of its pores, and 

 sends forth a tube more or less long, which descends 

 through the tissues of the style, enters the ovary, reaches 

 a tiny ovule, and pours into it the fovilla, which fovilla 

 forms the embryo or future plant that is preserved and 

 nourished in the seed. 



Take a little pollen from a Cucumber plant or Passion- 

 flower, and when it is fairly under the microscope, covered 

 with thin glass, let a drop of water run in. The moisture 

 is absorbed by the pollen-grain, and it throws out a tube 

 and discharges the fovilla. It goes off like a little cannon, 

 a cloud of fovilla waving on the slide. 



The quantity of pollen in a flower is astonishing. A 

 flower of the Peony, for instance, has about 174 stamina, 

 each containing 21,000 granules, total 3,654,000 pollen- 

 grains. A single Dandelion has 243,000 pollen-grains. 

 The contents of one anther are quite sufficient for the fruc- 

 tification of all the ovules ; but the superabundance is not 

 wasted, for thousands of insects live on the golden store, 



