THE CONE-BEARING EVERGREENS 219 



dust, abundant in the staminate catkins clustered on the 

 same tree. Contact of pollen grains and naked ovules is 

 followed by their coalescence — the "setting of seeds." 



The distinguishing trait of the higher plants that form 

 the grand division known as AngiospermSy is that the 

 ovules are borne in a closed ovary, and the pollen lodges on 

 the end of a stigma. "Pollen tubes" grow down through 

 the long style, finally reach the hidden ovule, and seed is 

 set. This complicated process is found in the majority of 

 flowers one studies in botany classes. Gymnosperms, and 

 the still lower groups of flow^erless ferns and mosses, are 

 merely glanced at by amateur botanists. The more prim- 

 itive plant forms are too difficult for beginners. 



The habit of the conifers is a character upon which we 

 may depend. With rare exceptions, there is a central 

 shaft, "the leader," and short horizontal branches in 

 whorls forming platforms. The side branches, also 

 whorled, are generally flattened into a horizontal spray. 

 The leaves are narrow, needle-like, or scale-like, and waxy 

 or resinous. The tough fibre of the wood enables the coni- 

 fers to resist damage by wind and by ice. Snowflakes sift 

 to the ground instead of accumulating upon the branches 

 and breaking them by their cumulative weight. The 

 wind, which pollinated the fertile flowers of coniferous 

 forests long before nectar-gathering insects came upon the 

 earth, is the harvester of their seeds. It scatters them far 

 and wide; each seed has a wing that adapts it to long 

 journeys in front of a gale. 



The resinous sap that courses through the veins of conif- 

 erous wood seals up the bark, leaves, and cones against the 

 invasion of enemies, and acts as an antiseptic dressing for 

 wounds. Without these special adaptations to a life of 



