THE FAIRY-LAND OF SCIENCE. 
knowing. Look at the two primrose flowers, i and 2, 
Fig. 45, p. 167, and tell me how you think the dust 
gets on to the top of the sticky knob or stigma. No. 
2 seems easy enough to explain, for it looks as if the 
pollen could fall down easily from the stamens on to 
the knob, but it cannot fall up, as it would have to do 
in No. i. Now the curious truth is, as Mr. Darwin 
has shown, that neither of these flowers can get the 
dust easily for themselves, but of the two No. I has 
the least difficulty. 
Look at a withered primrose, and see how it holds 
its head down, and after a little while the yellow crown 
falls off. It is just about as it is falling that the 
anthers or bags of the stamens burst open, and then, 
in No. i (Fig. 46), they are dragged over the knob 
FIG. 46. Corolla of Primrose falling off. i, Primrose with long 
pistil, and stamens in the tube, same as i of Fig. 45. 2, 
Primrose with short pistil, and stamens at mouth of tube, 2, 
Fig. 45- 
and some of the grains stick there. But in the other 
form of primrose, No. 2, when the flower falls off, the 
stamens do not come near the knob, so it has no chance 
of getting any pollen; and while the primrose is up- 
