FLOWERS AND POLLINATION 



of their stamens — and they cannot therefore fulfil the 

 purpose of a flower and produce seed. They are actu- 

 ally sterile flowers — and the only flowers that ought 

 ever to be called that. The name is applied to the non- 

 fruiting male or staminate flower very often, but this 

 application is not the proper one, double flowers alone 

 being sterile, strictly speaking; ray flowers, also called 

 sterile sometimes, are actually neuter. 



These, by-the-way, are understood to appear with 

 the small inconspicuous flowers which they encircle, 

 for the purpose of attracting insects. They are the 

 plant's banner, flung out to signal its tiny allies and 

 invite them to the nectar feast which the little chalices 

 of the hardly noticeable true flowers hold. As the insects, 

 thus attracted, make the rounds, their bodies gather 

 pollen in one place and carry it on to another, and the 

 highly desired cross-pollination is accomplished. 



The small, flat, white "flowers" — really nothing 

 but clusters of petals — which encircle the cymes of the 

 high-bush cranberry are an example of these, while the 

 old-fashioned snowball or guelder rose — the cran- 

 berry's closest relative, for both are viburnums — shows 

 a doubling of these neuter flowers at the expense of 

 every one of the tiny perfect flowers which make up 

 the body of the bush cranberry cyme. Examine these 

 two shrubs and compare the flower clusters of the one 

 with the other; compare especially the ray flowers with 

 the center, smaller flowers of the cluster from the cran- 

 berry, and then compare them with the " flowers'' that 

 make up the snowball. The difl'erence and the 



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