Chapter V.—Organs of Reproduction
The various species of hyacinths, though apparently different and distinct, are essentially alike. Bulbs of one sort differ very little from those of another—the leaves are always alike, their stalks grow in the same way—their blossoms, though infinitely varied, are arranged in the same regular order—each connected with the stem by a little thread, called the pedicel.[[4]] The double scarcely differs from the single, except in the blossom. We have already followed the gradual course of the growth of the bulb, and described its general composition. We will now go back to the single hyacinth, for in explaining its work of reproduction it is easier and more convenient to dissect than the double flower.
[4]. The calyx or flower-cup, being coloured or petaloid in its nature, is now called the corolla, but the old-fashioned word is here used—the pedicel is the little stalk which attaches the flower to the stem (or peduncle).
A BOATLOAD OF FRAGRANCE
The calyx or corolla forms at the base (through its shape) a chamber or room in which the “ovary” is found, but detached from it. At the point where the calyx is narrowed in at the entrance of the ovary chamber are the stamens. The parts of the corolla (or divided sections which curl back in the hyacinth) are called petals.
The stamens are attached to the interior of the calyx, and from the base of the stamen to the pedicel (or little connecting stalk) runs a fine fibre (which takes the place of the filament which is detached in other flowers), and this is seen from the outside as a line of colour a little darker than the rest of the flower.
The ovary (in the chamber at the bottom of the calyx) is surmounted by the pistil, the narrow body of the pistil is called the stylus, and the head is the stigma.
The stamens of the hyacinth have no filaments, they are sessile within the calyx, and the anthers are also attached at their base (though there is the fine thread of darker colour to be seen running through the calyx extending from the stamen to the pedicel).
The stamen is covered, when ripe, with a yellow dust called pollen, this looks like little black grains when under a microscope—they are little bags full of a kind of clear juice, these, when the stamens bend over and shed (as pollen), are caught by the stigma at the head of the pistil. This stigma, when seen under a microscope, is seen to be composed of very fine valvular cells, which can hold the seminal juice—the juice passes through the narrow channel of the stylus (or body of the pistil) into the centre of the ovary, which has an aperture so arranged as to let it in till it is full, when it closes again so completely that the seminal juice is held within till the time comes when the ovary is forced open by the ripening seed.
Before the flowers expand, and while they are still enveloped like a wheat ear in leafy bandages, the ovary is already furnished with eggs; but the seminal juice has not yet been deposited, the pistil not being formed enough to open its cells, but even while the flower is still in bud, the anthers let fall their pollen, and the pistil opens its cells, and no one seems to know exactly when it happens that the pollen explodes its little capsules of liquor or vapour or breath, which form the seminal juice.
Saint-Simon has a theory that the bees flying to and fro constantly over the flowers disturb the pollen, often carrying with them some of the pollen (containing seminal juice) from one flower to another, where it is deposited and received through the pistil into the ovary, and he suggests that this is the cause why “Conquests” (i.e. hyacinths raised from seed) never bear any resemblance to the flower their seed is derived from. But this does not seem entirely to account for their infinite variety. The invariability of this rule (that no hyacinth has been known to produce its like by seed) seems to prove that variation is not subject entirely to accidents of this kind, for surely sometimes by accident there would come up the same flower as that from which the seed was taken. Some growers may have taken seed from hyacinths grown in hot-houses, where the flower has been protected from bees and butterflies, and thus undisturbed the flower should have had seed which reproduced its own kind—and why should this occur as an invariable rule among hyacinths, when other flowers more frequently reproduce their own kind than not, with them the variation (when their seed has been crossed by insects) is an accident.[[5]]
[5]. One feels disinclined to believe Saint-Simon is quite accurate in his theory, that the variations in kind and colour of hyacinths raised by seed are entirely due to the interference of insects, for in the case of bees, it has been observed by certain men of science that bees invariably prefer to visit flowers, not only of one kind but of one colour during the course of one journey. That thus a bee, beginning on a certain white flower, will choose out these white flowers, leaving out every coloured one of that or of another species, until, laden with honey, it returns to the hive. (It may be, bees lose their heads when it is a question of hyacinths.)
Curious experiments have been made with hyacinths.
Two different bulbs are to be chosen, blue and white, for instance. Cut them perpendicularly down nearly through the middle, but being careful to avoid cutting into their central shoots (i.e. the future flower-stalk), then join together the two larger halves containing the flower-shoot, thus making one bulb of them, so that the two flowers should appear as arising from one bulb. Then, with a little moss wound round the closed joins, the made-up bulb may be put into the earth like any other. This usually results in producing two stems stuck together back to back, with one skin around them both apparently; and on one side comes out white flowers, on the other red or blue. Sometimes the colours get mixed, the colour of one flower shaded with that of the other, very rarely do the stems grow separate.
None of these experiments seem to explain how it is that a single hyacinth can produce a double (by seed raising), though perhaps in ten thousand seeds only two or three will come up double flowered; nor how it is that the double can be redoubled (through seed), and that once redoubled, the bulb is constant in giving off young bulbs with double flowers, which never again degenerate into single; nor will a single, in its offshoots, ever become a double hyacinth.