22 Field, Forest, and Wayside Flowers 
In this crocus, however, the sepals not only rival 
the petals, but outdo them in prettiness. 
Within the flower’s chalice are three stalks, each 
topped with a long, golden head. These are the 
stamens. 
The long heads are powder-boxes, and the yel- 
low dust which they contain has a power as won- 
derful as that of any fairy’s wand. 
At the very heart of the crocus is a column, 
tall and erect, surmounted by a fluted capital 
tipped with gold. This is the pistil. Its duty, 
in the floral division of labor, is to form, protect, 
and, in due time, distribute the young seed. In 
its lower part, at flowering time, we will find a 
fflumber of tiny green bodies destined to become 
seeds, if all goes well. 
This crocus has just unfolded, and the baby 
seeds within its pistil are not quickened yet. 
They may never live at all, but wither with the 
perishing flower, and thus die before they are 
really born. Life can be given to them only by 
the magic powder which the stamens contain. 
In the older works on botany this powder is 
called ‘‘ pollen,’’ but the most recent books on the 
wonders of plant-life give it a name more pon- 
derous and technical, but well worth remembering, 
