THE LIFE OF A PRIMROSE. 165 
cluster, there are a number of round transparent little 
bodies, looking something like round green orange- 
cells full of juice. They are really cells full of proto- 
plasm, with one little dark spot in each of them, which 
by-and-by is to make our little plantlet that we found 
in the seed. 
" These, then, are seeds," you will say. Not yet ; 
they are only ovules, or little bodies which may 
become seeds. If they were left as they are they 
would all wither and die. But those little yellow 
grains of pollen, which we saw sticking to the knob at 
the top, are coming down to help them. As soon as 
these yellow grains touch the sticky knob or stigma, 
as it is called, they throw out tubes, which grow 
down the column until they reach the ovules. In 
each one of these they find a tiny hole, and into 
this they creep, and then they pour into the ovule all 
the protoplasm from the pollen-grain which is sticking 
above, and this enables it to grow into a real seed 
with a tiny plantlet inside. 
This is how the plant forms its seed to bring up 
new little ones next year, while the leaves and the 
roots are at work preparing the necessary food. 
Think sometimes when you walk in the woods, how 
hard at work the little plants and big trees are, all 
around you. You breathe in the nice fresh oxygen 
they have been throwing out, and little think that it 
is they who are making the country so fresh and 
pleasant, and that while they look as if they were 
doing nothing but enjoying the bright sunshine, they 
are really fulfilling their part in the world by the help 
of this sunshine ; earning their food from the ground ; 
