102 



REPRODUCTION 



understand it. There is enough of fact and enough of 

 fiction in this interpretation to make it necessary to give 

 the process in a little more detail. 



3. The Modern View of Reproduction in Flowering 

 Plants. Botanists now describe this process as follows: 



The plant develops from the embryo in the seed and 

 presently produces flowers. Flowers are really clusters 

 of special leaves; sepals, petals, stamens, and pistils being 

 each a set of these spe- 

 cial leaves about the end 

 of a stem. The stamens 

 and pistils are like the 

 leaves of the fern plant 

 in that they bear spores. 

 The other leaves do not. 

 The stamen is not a male 

 organ; it is a spore- 

 bearing leaf. The whole 

 plant is therefore a spor- 

 ophyte. The pollen is 

 not a male cell; it is, at 

 first, just a spore. The 

 pistil is not a female or- 

 gan; it is also a spore- 

 bearing leaf, and deep in 

 each ovule at least one 

 large spore is borne. The 

 spores (pollen) borne by 

 the stamens are smaller 



spores than those borne Figure 24. Diagram of lengthwise see- 

 by the pistil. The spores tion through a complete flower. From 

 in the stamen escape; Coulter's Plant Life and Plant Uses. 



those in the pistil are deep in the tissues and can not 

 escape. When the pollen spore is carried to the pistil 

 it germinates by producing a tube which grows into the 

 ovary. The nucleus of the pollen cell divides once 



