164 MYSTERIES OF THE FLOWERS 



and trained them to fetch and carry, to work and 

 toil in return for the meagre compensation of food. 

 We have seen how ingeniously and completely the 

 flowers were the taskmasters. Let us now see how 

 trees and plants have harnessed the wind, and make 

 use of it to carry pollen. This pollen is extremely 

 fine and light, so as to fly far, and also most abund- 

 ant, in order to allow for great waste while a small 

 proportion reaches the desired goal. 



The pollen of pine-trees sometimes falls in such 

 quantities as to be taken as a shower of sulphur or 

 "yellow snow." It has been caught by a kite flying 

 1200 feet in the air, and has been found upon the 

 snows as high in the Alps. Out at sea, some 300 

 miles from land, the sailors sometimes sweep it from 

 their ship's deck in bucketfuls. But this gigantic 

 swarm of pollen grains is set free from the trees in 

 the spring, before leaves have unfolded to impede 

 it in its flight. It is produced by stamens somewhat 

 similar to those of other flowers, though clustered 

 together in tassels, or cones, forming monoecious 

 or dioecious flowers. 



The pistillate flowers to which the pollen is con- 

 signed are of two very distinct forms : those having 

 no stigma, but the seed exposed, and hence called 

 naked, seeded, or "gymnospermous," such as the 

 pines, larches and firs; and those having enormous 



