Every Girl's Book Part 2

"Yes, dearie, many plants have both a mother and a father part, which grow near together in the same flower, while other plants have only a father part, and still others have only a mother part. This b.u.t.tercup has both, has both the male and the female principle. The ovary is the female, and here, above it and surrounding it, you see a number of taller spires, yellow in color and each of them bearing a tiny enlargement, a kind of k.n.o.b, at the top."

"Yes, yes, but that--that can't be the papa part! Is it, mamma?" she cried, examining the rather insignificant appearing spires dubiously.

"They don't look much like a--a papa!" she said in some disappointment. Her mother laughed.

"They certainly do not look much like a man-papa," she returned, "but they form the papa part of the plant, nevertheless, and are truly the papas of the baby b.u.t.tercups. And their name is the second one that I wish you to remember from now on. It is stamen."

"Stamen!" said Elsie.

"Yes, each of these stems is called a stamen, and they form the male part of the plant, the father part. Many plants, those of the simpler kinds, have only one stamen and it grows in the flower so that its head hangs right above the ovary. Here you see that all of the stamens are above the ovary, and the reason why they are placed there by nature you will see very soon. What I wish now is to show you why the bee came to the flower."

"I know--it was for honey! Isn't that what you said before, mamma?"

"Yes, darling, but do you see any honey here?"

"No, mamma, and I never knew before that b.u.t.tercups had honey. I always thought honey came from a beehive."

"It does come to us from a beehive, but it comes from flowers first, and one of the many kinds that furnish it is this b.u.t.tercup. The bee sips it from the flowers, just a tiny bit from each blossom that he visits, and when he has enough he takes it home to the hive and puts it away to eat by-and-by, in the winter, when there are no flowers growing for him to rifle. He does it just as men lay away money for 'a rainy day,' as we say, and as squirrels lay up a store of nuts for the cold weather. Now, suppose you count those flattened, round-cornered parts of the b.u.t.tercup--how many are there?"

"Five," said Elsie quickly.

"Yes, there are five of them, and they are called petals. You will notice that they are much narrower and slighter at the bottom than they are at the top. It is at the bottom that they are joined to the central part of the flower. Now, just where they are connected with this central part there is a tiny sack of honey."

"It must be _very_ tiny," said Elsie, regarding the slender connection earnestly, "for there isn't room enough for much, I'm sure. And it must be all covered up, for I can't see any signs of it."

"It is covered up. There is a very small scale, or leaf, over it to protect it from those insects who have no right to the honey. But the bee knows how to get at it, and he does so very quickly, once he alights on the blossom, as we have just seen one do. For while he appeared as if he were merely tumbling clumsily around on the flower he was sampling those honey-sacks, and we saw how speedily he finished all five of them on this flower and then buzzed busily away to the other."

"He was just the same as at dinner, then, wasn't he mamma! But why did he go to the other flower--didn't he get all he wanted from this one?"

"No, darlingest, he gets but very little from each flower. If he could take all he wanted from one he would never fly right to another. And then, if all the other insects should do the same, the whole plan of nature would fall through and there would soon be no life on earth."

Elsie's eyes looked very large when she heard this.

"Would I die, and you, mamma, and all of us--Alice and Rosie, and, oh, everybody we know?"

"Yes, dearie, all of us. Those few simple plants which still, in the primitive way, fertilize themselves, are not enough and are too weak to carry on the vegetation of the earth, and without the insects and birds and the wind we never should have been born at all; for they are necessary to make the plants reproduce their kinds and grow, and the plants are necessary food for us as well as for the animals that we eat, such as the hens and ducks and sheep and cows. So nature has given each flower only a little honey, not enough for the bee, and he is compelled to fly to many before he becomes satisfied. And this brings us back to the stamen and ovary again, to show what they are for and how the bee marries the two plants together after he has collected his fee of delicious honey."

"I am all 'tention," said Elsie, in so quaint an imitation of older folks that her mother was forced to smile, knowing that she had a listener that was interested, to say the least--a listener who felt the importance and gravity of the study which they were now pursuing.

Elsie never attempted big words except when she felt dignified.

IV

THE PAPA AND MAMMA PARTS OF THE PLANTS

"Now," said Mrs. Edson, taking hold of the b.u.t.tercup again, "you see here, at the top of each stamen, the slight enlargement that I mentioned. It looks like a kind of k.n.o.b, and it really is a hard, hollow sack, or bag, containing a fine yellow powder, which is called pollen. Is that plain so far, dearie?"

"Pollen, yes, mamma! And do you wish me to remember that name too?"

"Yes, it is very necessary that you should do so. You will soon learn why. Now look again at the green ovary. That is also hollow, and contains seeds or eggs, as I said before. In plants we call them seeds and in animals eggs. And it is these seeds that grow into the baby plants. But they cannot grow alone, without help. With a certain kind of help they can and do grow, and what do you suppose that help is?"

Elsie gazed earnestly at her mother, trying to think it out. But she was compelled to shake her head after all.

"I can't imagine," she said.

"Nothing but that some of the pollen shall be mixed with them," said her mother.

"Oh, I see, I see!" Elsie cried delightedly. "That is why the stamens with the pollen in them are right over the ovaries."

"Yes, dear, you have guessed it. The ripe pollen, falling into the ripe ovary, would fertilize the seeds. And with some plants, the earlier and simpler kinds, this is just what happens. But here you can see that the ovary is not ripe. It is hard and green. When it is ripe its color is yellow. But the pollen is ripe now, you can see it all over the anthers, as the k.n.o.bs or sacks are called. If the pollen should fall upon the ovary now it would roll off without entering, and would be wasted. Now what do you suppose happens?"

"The--the--"

Elsie hesitated, looking with very bright eyes at her mother, almost sure enough to go on, but not quite. It seemed so peculiar, the thought that had come to her, and she did not see just how it could be.

"You were going to say the bee, weren't you?" her mother smiled.

"Oh yes--and would that have been right?" Elsie cried in delight.

"Yes, that would have been exactly right. If we had been near enough to examine the bee's motions closely we should have seen that he alighted on the ovary, and then began to turn here and there in order to get at the honey at the base of each petal. As he did so he brushed off some of the pollen, for he was right in amongst the stamens, and this powdery pollen stuck to his fuzzy body and he carried it away with him."

"But if he carried it away how could it get into the flower's ovary?"

Elsie asked, puzzled.

"It did not get into this flower's ovary," her mother answered.

"Nature did not intend that it should, and that is why the bee is introduced. For the other b.u.t.tercup that he flew to, or some other one that he would visit afterward, would have its ovary ripe, and when he alighted on it in search of honey some of the pollen would be brushed off his body right into this ovary that was all ready to receive it."

"Oh! But what would happen then? The little baby b.u.t.tercups would begin to grow right away, mamma?"

"Yes, the ovary would close up and the seeds would begin to grow, very slowly. They would keep on growing until they were ripe and then they would burst their covering and fall out on the ground. Those of them that were fortunate enough to become embedded in the soil, so that they would not freeze in the winter, would come out in the spring as little plants, which would soon bring forth b.u.t.tercups. That is the way with the wild flowers. But with the cultivated ones, like cuc.u.mbers, apples, beans, and the like, all of those that are valuable for eating, we are careful to save the seeds and plant them where they will be safe. Instead of leaving them to chance we make a garden and plant them in it where they will be snug and warm."

"And wouldn't the seeds grow, or the little plants come up, if the bee hadn't gone to the flowers, mamma?"

"No, darling, it is the bee, or some other insect, or the birds, that marry all the bright-colored plants in this way, as the wind marries the soberhued ones. Without these we should have no vegetation."

"But, mamma, marry! Why do you say they marry? I thought only men and women married."

"The marriage that takes place between men and women, dear, is only a repet.i.tion of the marriage of plants. Its object is the same--to reproduce the race. Plants began to marry long, long before men and women ever came on earth and have been doing it ever since, fortunately for us, because if they should give up the practice we should have to follow suit. The earth would go back to the barren state in which it was before life came to it."

"It seems so strange," said Elsie. "Why, I never heard of anything so funny! A bee, just a little bee, and without him--"

"Funny is scarcely the word," Mrs. Edson smiled, "but it is certainly wonderful. The pumpkin, the bean, the pear, the squash, the orange, all the fruits and vegetables that we eat, and which the animals eat, must be fertilized in order to reproduce their kind, and all the fertilizing is done either by the wind, which blows the pollen from one plant to another, or by birds and insects. But this is only a small part of the secret I have to tell you, just the beginning. There are many more wonderful things to come than I have told you yet, but I think this is enough for the first time. You would better think over what you have heard until tomorrow, when I will tell you the next step, which is about the animals. There are four things in this lesson that you must remember:

"First, every male plant has at least one stamen, which bears pollen.

"Second, every female plant has one ovary which contains seeds.