158 THE BEHAVIOUR OF PLANTS 
Where the seed is formed. If you keep watch of 
some flowers day after day, you can read the story of 
where the seed is formed. You can read it all on the 
same day if you have plants on which are flowers of 
different ages. You should begin with the younger 
ones and read up through the older ones. You will 
read that the sepals fall away; the petals wither and 
fall; the stamens wither, but the pistils grow larger. 
After a time they will ripen and you can find the seed. 
The story of just how the seed is formed 1s a hard one 
to read, and I am afraid it would be hard for you to 
understand if I should tell it. But I have attempted 
to tell it in Chapter XXV. I may tell you, though, 
that unless each part of the flower did its work faith- 
fully, the seed could not be formed. 
F 
BEHAVIOUR OF THE MARROW FLOWER 
The petals. In almost any vegetable garden im 
the summer you may see vegetable marrows growing 
on raised mounds, the trailing stems bearing large 
green leaves and yellow flowers. I do not need to 
— tell you that the flower is very different from that of 
the buttercup. You can see that. Where are the 
petals? I believe you can read in the flower that 
the large, yellow, showy, urn-shaped part just inside the 
calyx is the corolla. How many points are there on 
