1 ole tea ie 
Ch. XTV.] INFLORESCENCE. 79 
and pistils are on separate flowers, depends a little upon 
chance, the favourable chances are sonumerous that it is hardly 
possible, in the order of nature, that a pistillate plant should 
remain unfertilized. The particles of the pollen are light and 
abundant, and butterflies, honey bees, and other insects, trans- 
port them from flower to flower. The winds also assist in ex- 
ecuting the designs of nature. 
325. The pollen of Pines and Firs, moved by winds, may 
be seen rising like a cloud above the forests; the particles be- 
ing disseminated, fall upon the pistillate flowers, and rolling 
within their scaly envelopes, fertilize the germs. 
326. A curious fact is stated by an Italian writer, viz., that 
at places about forty miles distant, grew two Palm trees, the 
one without stamens, the other without pistils ; neither of them 
bore seeds for many years; but in process of time they grew so 
tall as to tower above all the objects near them. The wind 
thus meeting with no obstruction, wafted the pollen from the 
staminate to the pistillate flowers, which to the astonishment of 
all, began to produce fruit. 
327. “ Gardeners,” says a botanical writer, “formerly at- 
tempted to assist nature, by stripping off the infertile flowers 
of melons and cucumbers, considering them as unnecessary 
incumbrances, since they would never become fruit. But find- 
ing that they then obtained no fruit at all, they soon learned 
_the wiser practice of admitting the winds to blow, and the in- 
sects to transfer, the pollen of the infertile to the fruit-bearing 
flowers.” 
CHAPTER XIV. 
Inflorescence—Receptacle—Fruit—Linneus’ classification 
of Pericarps. 
328. We shall now proceed to consider the various ways in 
which flowers grow upon their stalks; this is called their in- 
florescence, or mode of flowering. 
325. What is said of the pollen of pines and furs 3 
326. What fact is stated by an Italian writer ? 
327. What is the effect of stripping off the infertile or staminate 
flowers of plants ?. 
328, What is meant by inflorescence ? 
