LUTHER BURBANK 



beautiful and lovely in the bloom of that geranium 

 — and the geranium itself. 



***** 



Here is a plant, the geranium, so anxious to 

 produce variations in its offspring that it has lost 

 the power of fertilizing its own eggs and risked 

 its whole posterity upon the cooperation of a 

 neighboring plant. 



It has no power of locomotion — no ability to 

 get about from place to place in search of pollen 

 for its eggs or of eggs in need of its pollen; nor 

 has its neighbor; so they call in an outside 

 messenger of reproduction — the bee. 



The geranium makes its honey at the bottom 

 of its blossom. It places movable packages of 

 pollen dust balanced on springy stamens in such 

 a way that, to reach the sweets, the pollen hedge 

 )nust be broken through. It keeps its egg chamber 

 closed and its pistil unreceptive while the pollen 

 dust is there, and as if to advertise its hidden 

 sweets to the nectar loving bees, it throws out 

 shapely petals of brilliant hue and exudes a 

 charming scent. 



And thus, the bees, attracted from afar, crowd- 

 ing into the tiny wells to get their sweets, become 

 besmeared with pollen dust as they enter a pollen 

 bearing bloom — and leave a load of pollen dust 

 wherever they find a receptive stigma. 



[78] 



