126 FIRST STUDIES IN PLANT LIFE 



are so small that you might easily miss them ! So 

 small is the flower that makes the acorn that makes 

 the oak ! 



3. ]\Iany trees that make seed on this plan have 

 the pollen-bearing flowers on one tree, and the pistil- 

 bearing flowers on a sepai-ate tree. Of this kind are 

 the poplars. 



•4. In most trees that use the wind as a pollen- 

 carrier the pollen is made and scattered before the 

 leaves come out. You may see this very clearly in 

 the elm tree. The flowers open, and ripen, and fall 

 before the leaves appear. The spring wind blows 

 them about the street while the branches overhead 

 are still bare. In this way, pollen is not caught by 

 the leaves which have no need of it, and is more 

 likely to fall on the pistil flowers that do need it. 

 Sometimes the wind is not blowing in the right 

 direction, and so the pollen falls where it can do no 

 good ; but the tree makes so much pollen that some 

 of the dust is almost sure to fall where it is wanted. . 

 Strike the pollen-flowers of a Scotch fir-tree, or of 

 any of the pines, and see what a shower of pollen 

 comes out ! Sometimes, indeed, there is so much 

 jDollen in the air when the trees and grasses are 

 making their seed, that people become ill through 

 breathing it. They get what is called hay-fever, and are 

 sometimes ordered to the seaside where there is little 

 pollen in the air. In countries where pines abound 

 the rains of spring are sometimes coloured yellow, 

 and the ignorant people talk of sulphur-showers ! 



5. How the common plantain makes seed. 

 And now, if you look for the common plantain, 

 sometimes called rib-grass, we shall examine a plant 



