Blossom and Seed 199 



more, and the cells are filled with a liquid of a most 

 nutritious kind, consisting partly of starch, partly of oil, 

 and partly of some jelly-like nitrogenous compound. 



It is pollen which is the flesh-forming food of the 

 bee. It may live on honey, which is mainly sugar — 

 not nitrogenous — during the winter, when it is doing 

 no work, but when it is taking long journeys to and 

 fro, it needs something more nutritious to make up for 

 the waste occasioned by so much muscular exercise, 

 and it eats pollen, besides carrying it home to make 

 bee-bread for the young grubs. 



But our concern now is with the ovules, the possible 



Poi^en of Wheat Pollen of the Hollyhock. 



seeds, lying enclosed in the ovary at the base of the 

 pistil, while the pollen, which is to make seeds of them, 

 is in the anther-sacs above, and, as it would seem, out 

 of, and beyond their reach. The question is, how are 

 the two to be brought together ? 



In describing the primrose, we mentioned that the 

 top of the pistil ends in a knob ; and this knob is a 

 matter of great importance. It is called the stigma, 

 and is of all sorts of different shapes in different 

 flowers ; sometimes merely a point, sometimes large 

 and divided into lobes, sometimes feathery, as in most 

 of the grasses ; but whatever its shape, it has no 

 covering of outer skin, as the stalk on which it is 

 borne has, and it is more or less sticky, and often 

 crowned with a bead of nectar. This bead is so large 



