Part 10

Certainly. It consists of two valves, with hinges, and the seed on each side. Sometimes there are several valves together, and we call the whole a Capsule. When these burst, the seeds fall out.

But how are the seeds produced?

We are coming to that next. I told you of the bursting of the anther, and the scattering of the pollen. Though much of the dust is wasted, a part is caught on the glutinous stigma of the pistil.

And what becomes of it then?

It passes down the hollow style into the ovary at the bottom.

Yet I have seen flowers in which the pistil was higher than the stamens; how could the pollen reach it?

Many curious contrivances effect the transfer. The wind blows the yellow dust. A bird throws some about. An insect catches some on its wings and legs, and stepping on the stigma, leaves pollen behind.

Is the honey in the nectary to tempt the insects to the flower?

The sweet morsel attracts birds as well as insects.

When, then, the stamens have discharged their pollen, and the pistil conveyed it to the germen, I suppose there is no further use for them.

There is not, and they die off like the petals of the corolla and the calyx before them. But because of the variety of stamens in number and situation, botanists have thought it well to divide plants into classes by this means.

How do they do that, father?

They place in one class all vegetable substances whose flowers contain but one stamen; in another, those with two stamens; and so forth. The number and arrangement of the pistils enable us to form plants into orders; as, a flower may have four stamens, and one pistil, or four stamens and two pistils, &c.

I suppose the stamens and pistils are always found together.

No, they are not: though Compound flowers are made up of sets of flowers within the same calyx, we have plants in which the stamen, or male flowers, are in one part, and the pistil, or female flowers, on another portion of the tree. The former are barren flowers; the latter, fertile or fruitful, as the seed vessel is only connected with the female side.

I think the service of winds, insects, and birds, is more needful than ever now. But I have seen people pick off flowers from melon and cucumber plants, saying, that they were no good.

These were the male blossoms. But they who pluck off all the barren blossoms before the pollen appears, can never expect to have fruit; for the fertile blossoms are of no use without the others. But what would you think of male flowers being all on one tree, while the female are upon another at a distance?

I suppose that is to give the birds and insects more work than ever. Please tell me a tree that has this curious plan.

The Palm is an instance. Where the trees grow in a cluster, as they usually do, there is no difficulty. If very far apart, the male blossoms, when ripe, are cut off, carried to the other tree, and the pollen shaken over the pistil flowers.

That is singular. But how do water plants get on with the yellow dust?

Some of them rise to the surface to flower, and sink to seed. Those that keep below are provided with a glutinous pollen, which cannot be affected with the wet.

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Well, father, I do think we are getting on bravely with our lesson. But I would so like to peep into the germen or ovary, and see what goes on there.

We will do so. I ought to have said, that before the pollen sheds, the ovary has a lot of half formed seeds adhering to the Placenta inside. These Ovules, as they are called, are a sort of nucleus or kernel, and are each placed between two sacs of open mouths.

What goes into those mouths?

Nothing goes in, but the pollen of the stamens comes down through them out upon the ovule, and is received to its Embryo, or heart, through a very small hole. Soon after the pollen has entered, the ovule becomes perfected and vivified, or made full of life.

And is that the seed?

The ovules do then become seeds in their little cells, and are, in their turn, shed out when ripe.