Plant Life. 89 



cern is herself; she desires honey for her own use, 

 and also puts the pollen to a use not at all 

 designed by the flower; she stores it away in the 

 form of " bee-bread " as food for herself. 



But the plant can well afford a generous largess 

 of even the precious reproductive material to those 

 active winged helpers, and as a rule the number 

 of pollen grains produced by a single flower is 

 something almost inconceivable. 



They, like other sperm-cells, are very small, 

 sometimes microscopic in size, and oftentimes of 

 very beautiful and remarkable forms. To be able 

 to look into the world which the microscope reveals 

 is like being endowed with a new and finer exist- 

 ence, it so enlarges one's mental horizon. 



Some plants are so prodigal of pollen that they 

 do not depend upon insects as pollen carriers, 

 but by an astounding fertil'ty fill the air -with 

 this precious " dust," so that it is literally borne 

 upon the wings of the wind from one flower to 

 another. Certain trees have this habit and the 

 number of pollen grains they consign to the trans- 

 portation of the wind is beyond man's power of 

 comprehension. 



Sometimes for miles clouds of pollen will be 

 carried, covering the ponds with a light film and 

 filling the air. Sometimes this pollen dust is caught 

 in a storm and carried into upper air-currents, 

 where it is borne along over vast distances, finally 

 falling in a cloud over a distant region, sometimes 



