Part 10

Why does one anther ripen at a time? Why do not all shed pollen together, as is the habit of the morning-glory, and finish in one day?

Perhaps the tropæolum fears the rain may ruin the chances of the seeds to get pollen. We know that water spoils the pollen, and though the tropæolum has fringes to keep it from the nectary, and a roof to protect it, more or less would doubtless beat in during a hard shower.

Does the tropæolum bloom, then, in the rainy season in its own hot home—in the rainy season when the showers are terrific?

We should like to know that.

If it did, that would be a good reason for ripening the anthers one at a time. If one were spoiled, another might succeed.

We may be sure there is a good reason for this habit of the tropæolum, though we may not have discovered it.

When at last the pollen is gone and the anthers are empty and shriveled, the spur is still full of honey.

In front of it has risen, not a stamen this time, but a dainty five-rayed stigma. It is held in place by the style, and is ripe and ready for pollen. It has unfolded its five rays that it may catch and hold the pollen grains.

But all its pollen is gone! The bees and the birds have carried it away. The bees ate some and carried some home to their hives. None remains for the five-rayed stigma. But here comes a bee, a large, yellow-banded bumblebee. She has a ball of red pollen in each of her two baskets. She gathered it in another tropæolum blossom, and intends to take it home to feed the young bees; but as she enters our pollenless flower for nectar, lo! she brushes aside the five-rayed stigma. A few grains of pollen from her legs cling to the stigma, for it is sticky and holds them.

The bee hurries away. She does not know what she has done; she does not know that in brushing aside the stigma that stood in her way she has given life to the seeds and provided for a new generation of tropæolum vines.

The flower gave pollen to its neighbors, and now in its need they have sent pollen to it.

Soon the bright corolla fades and falls. Its work is done. It expressed its joy in life; it called the bees, and by them sent pollen to its neighbors, and took pollen from them in return.

For many days it kept its long red horn full of sweet nectar, until its stigma rose and took the pollen, when the flower faded and fell. But the five-rayed stigma did not fall. It remained attached to the green little fruit that lay hid in the heart of the flower.

It is not easy to see this fruit when the flower first opens, for it is small and hidden by the stamens.

But after the pollen has reached the stigma the fruit grows rapidly. The corolla falls, and the stem that holds the fruit curls up. It curls up until it has drawn the green fruit down under the leaves, out of the way of the buds that wish to open. The stigma and style fall off at last, and leave the fruit to ripen alone.

WHO LIES CURLED UP?

Who lies curled up under the shields? Under the shields of its parents? A cunning young fruit peeps out o’er the world, From under the shields of its parents.

It is parted in three with a seed in each part, This cunning young fruit I’ve told you about. It is parted in three, yet the three are one fruit, Lying under the shields of the parents.

The stems curl up and pull it down Under the shields of its parents. It lies there all safe, so near the warm ground, Under the shields of its parents!

MORE ABOUT THE TROPÆOLUM.

The tropæolum, which people call nasturtium, has shields to defend itself.

Warriors are content with one shield, but the tropæolum has many.

They have only to protect themselves from the darts of the enemy, but the tropæolum has a harder task: it has to protect itself against the pangs of hunger.

It needs many shields to do this, for hunger is a tireless foe, and has his quiver always full of arrows.

You see, in the tropæolum the shields are the leaves, and they are held out on long stems to catch the darts Apollo, the sun, flings at them. These are not unfriendly darts, but as they strike the little shields of the tropæolum they make them tingle with life. Then the shield leaves go to work and make food for the plant. They make starch and many other things. They make a spicy juice, for one thing, that causes our tongues to smart if we taste it. Sometimes we bite a tropæolum stem, for we like the taste of the sharp juice. But we do not want too much of it, for it makes the palate at the back of the nose tingle, and that is why we call it “nasturtium.” “Nasturtium,” you know, comes from two Latin words, nasus tortus, which mean “convulsed nose”; and nobody likes to have a “convulsed nose” very long at a time!

“Nasturtium” is not the right name for our plant with its many shields.

There is another plant which “convulses” our noses, and which the botany tells us is the nasturtium, but which we call water cress. We eat it in the spring of the year.

The right name of our garden nasturtium is “tropæolum,” which comes from a Greek word meaning “trophy,” its many shields probably being likened to so many trophies taken from the enemy.