Crocuses 27 
Inside the baby seed is another little globe or 
cay 
sac filled with colorless jelly—the ‘‘ macrospore’’ 
or embryo-sac. The pollen-tube pushes its way 
downward till it touches and pierces this little 
globe. Then part of the drop of jelly which has 
filled the pollen-grain or microspore enters the 
macrospore and fuses with its jelly, and when this 
union takes place the purpose for which the blos- 
som blew has been achieved. From the fusion of 
microspore and macrospore comes life, or rather 
the possibility of life, for from their united sub- 
stance Nature begins to mould and build a tiny 
plant within the young seed. 
The time which elapses between the first touch 
of the microspore upon the stigmatic surface and 
the quickening of the seed that is to be, varies 
greatly in flowers of different species. The pollen- 
tube of the crocus takes from one to three days 
in finding its way to the macrospore. But this is 
not because the crocus pistil is long, for in the 
great night-blooming cereus, which has a pistil nine 
inches in length, the pollen-tube penetrates to the 
macrospore in a few hours, while in some flowers, 
as in certain varieties of orchid, weeks elapse 
while the tube is descending a very short distance. 
Each macrospore can be vitalized by the con- 
