THE FLOWEE 



127 



Fig, 84.— Plantain (rib-grass). 



that uses the wind to bear its 

 pollen. This plant lifts up its 

 spike of brown tiny flowers on 

 a long tough stalk. Very likelj^ 

 you have played at the game of 

 striking the heads of the rib- 

 grass one against the other till 

 one of the stalks breaks. 



6. Each little flower on the 

 spike has a tiny calyx, a chaffy 

 corolla, and stamens, and pistil. 

 The stigma is hairy in order to 

 catch the pollen easily as it 

 floats past in the air; and 

 the long stamens hang out 

 freely, so that the pollen may 

 be readily blown off by the wind. Notice care- 

 fully that nearly all the grasses have stamens and 

 stigmas of this kind (figs. 85 and 86). Like the clover- 

 head, the flowers of the plantain ripen from the base of 

 the spike upwards ; and, if you watch some particular 

 spike from day to day, you will see how the circle of 

 white broad anthers slowly moves up the brown spike, 

 till perhaps only a solitary stamen on the very top 

 waves its white anthers in the air. No insect visits 

 these flowers ; and the sole purpose of the long tough 

 stalks is to catch the wind. 



7. The flower of the wheat plant. And now we 

 shall go back to the wheat-field, and watch again the 

 heads bending to the breeze. This time we shall 

 look more closely at the wheat-flower. First of all, 

 we take notice that each flower hangs in such a 

 way that it moves at the slightest breath of the 



