S6 WAYSIDE WEEDS. 



be ripe, this pollen dust will come out in a golden 

 shower. Dust it looks, but dust it is not ; for if 

 you get it sufficiently bigily magnified, you will 

 •find it to consist of multitudes of minute bead-like 

 grains, generally round, but sometimes oval or 

 triaflgulari When ripe, shaken or not, the anthers 

 discharge their pollen by a regular, mode of open* 

 ing, or, as it is called, dehiscence ; this opening, 

 in most cases, taking place along a line of sui/wr&i 

 but in some instances by means of pores or valves. 

 The very abundance of the pollen contents of these 

 anthers testifies to its importance j without it, plant 

 perpetuation does not take place. But before we 

 get upon that subject, we must make further 

 acquaintance than we have done yet with the other 

 essential organ of reproduction, and for this we 

 must look to the centre of the flower. 



THE PISTIL 



Is the central organ of the blossom, the seed- 

 bearer. You will find, indeed you must have found 

 already, the pistil much more varied in form than 

 the stamens. In the buttercup it is made up of 

 many members ; in the poppy it consists, appa. 

 rently, of but one ; in the leguminous plants of 

 one; in the umbeUifers of two; in the rosaQeans 

 apparently of one in some cases, of many in others. 

 In short, there is no end to the varieties of pistil, 

 and such you will find the case as you go on 



