28 Field, Forest, and Wayside Flowers 
tents of one single tube, so but one microspore is 
necessary to the development of a seed. 
But Nature provides the golden dust in lavish 
profusion. It has been estimated that twenty 
thousand grains are contained in one single stamen 
of a peony, and some stamens yield the vitalizing 
powder in even greater abundance. 
This is because Nature must provide microspores 
enough to meet the needs of all the macrospores 
in all the flowers that blow, after an enormous 
amount of the precious powder has been wasted. 
Some blows away, some is washed earthward by 
rain or dew, some is eaten by ants and other 
crawling intruders, much is gathered by the bees, 
to be made into ‘‘ bee-bread,’’ and many grains 
are dropped by flying insects, before the pistil of 
a sister blossom has been reached. 
The use of pollen in the floral economy was 
suspected,—at least in the case of certain blos- 
soms,—even in classic times. And the fact that 
the pollen-grain must give of its substance to the 
pistil before the seed can be vitalized has been 
known for two centuries. But only in recent 
times have Nature-students made a _ discovery 
which casts a flood of light upon the mysteries 
of the flowers,—and it is this: The macrospore in 
