THE FLOWBB 



125 



XXI.— THE PLOWEK.— Part VII. 



WiND-FBKTILIZBD PlOWBES. 



1. Flowers that use the wind to scatter their 

 pollen. Plowers cannot leave the place where they 

 were born ; and so, in order to scatter their pollen, 

 they must make use of carriers. We have seen how 

 some of them pay the insects to do this work ; and 

 now we have to look at those flowers that make use of 

 the wind. This is a common plan among the trees 

 and grasses. We shall look first of all at the oak, 

 which is one of the many trees that use this way of 

 spreading their pollen. 



2. How the oak tree makes seed. 



— Look at an oak tree in the spring 

 time, just as the beautiful light green 

 leaves are breaking out of the buds ; 

 and you will see long, loose tassels or 

 catkins that wave in the breeze. Use 

 your lens, and you will see that the 

 tassel is made up of clusters of small 

 flowers that bear pollen. Shake the 

 tassel, and a shower of pollen will 

 fall. There are no pistils in these 

 tassel-flowers of the oak ; so that we 

 guess at once that the pistil-bearing 

 flowers are either on other parts of 

 the tree or on other oak trees. Ah ! 

 here they are ; on the same branch a 

 little higher up, and snugly sheltered between the 

 leaf-stalk and the stem. These pistil-bearing flowers 



Catkin of oak. 



