THE FLOWER 103 



honey-path. You will see this most clearly in an 

 anther just beginning to split. Notice that the pollen 

 bursting from the middle anther almost blocks the 

 way to the honey. You will have noticed, while 

 pulling the flower to pieces, that the anthers fall off 

 unless you do the work very gently. The lowest 

 anthers hold on better than the others. This is 

 important, because these anthers are the ones most 

 likely to touch the insect. 



i. The Pistil. If now you remove the ten stamens 

 with your pin you will see that a red-stalked body is 

 left. This is the pistil. It is stouter than a stamen ; 

 and it shows signs of dividing at the top. This top 

 of the pistil is called the stigma. No seed can be 

 made unless the pollen-dust falls on the stigma. 



5. The Seed-case. Take now a riper flower and 

 remove the sepals, petals and stamens. The pistil is 

 now a pretty object. It has split at the top into five 

 ends that curve gracefully outwards. At the foot of 

 the red pistil, is a hairy, green body. This is the 

 seed-case. In this are the tiny bodies that will 

 swell into full seeds if the top of the pistil, the stigma, 

 can catch some pollen. 



6. You notice that the seed-case is of two parts, the 

 bottom part being broader than the top part. It is 

 in the bottom part that the seeds lie ; and already 

 you can see them swelling. With the help of your 

 lens, you will find that there are five seeds. Do you 

 see now why the pistil divides, at the stigma, into five 

 parts ? The truth is that the red pistil-stalk is made 

 up of five pistil-stalks each of which leads down to 

 one of the five seeds. 



