360 Field, Forest, and Wayside Flowers 
ment, till they became the whitish, papery little 
affairs we see to-day. 
Each plantain blossom has both stamens and pis- 
tils, but the pistils mature first. In the commonest 
varieties they project between the folded petals 
while the little flowers are still in bud, and are fer- 
tilized by pollen blown to them from some neigh- 
boring spike. Their feathery tips are wonderfully 
fitted to catch and hold any stray grains which 
happen to come their way. After the little plumes 
of the pistil have withered away, the stamens ripen 
and dangle out on cobwebby filaments, so as to 
scatter all their pollen to the four winds. 
Let us notice that the lower flowerets of the 
spike are the first to open; and so if we pick a 
half-blown spike we find that all the pistils are ripe 
above while the stamens are ripe below. If the 
upper flowerets opened first the pollen would fall 
from their stamens to the lower flowerets of the 
same spike; but as the pistils below have always 
been fertilized before the stamens are ripe above, 
there is no chance of such an accident, and the 
seeds of each spike are set by aid of pollen brought 
from another. 
So the plantain is wholly adapted to wind fer- 
tilization and has lost the bright color which once 
