THE MORNING GLORY FAMILY
Perhaps the story of life can be told as beautifully from the morning-glory as from any other flower. Here the beautiful flower cup is the home of Father and Mother Morning-Glory and all their little babies. (See [Fig. 18]).
As we carefully take away their little home, the flower cup, we have left a little green cup, and coming up from the center you will see five little stems, every one of them wearing a hat of powder or pollen and this—if you please—is Papa Morning-Glory. Look closely and you will see coming up from the center of these five stems (stamens) one central stalk without a hat, Mother Morning-Glory, known in botany as the "pistil"; and as you follow down this pistil you will find an enlarged part at the base, which is known as the cradle-nest—the home of the seed babies.
Little was known about this wonderful fertilization of the seeds by the pollen two hundred years ago, and a whole century passed before the secret of the blossom and the bees was discovered; and even then it was not fully realized how great was the work of the bees in cross-fertilization. Nor was it understood that the beautiful blossom of the flower, with its sweet nectar, was an exceedingly important factor in attracting the bees. Another century passed before Darwin gave to the world the story of the great work performed by the bees in cross-fertilization—in carrying the pollen from flower to flower, for it is now a well-known fact that all of the blossoms visited by the bees produce better fruit and better flowers.
In the flower where the father and mother part matures at the same time, self-fertilization is the rule. Cross-fertilization occurs in instances where either the father part or mother part ripen at different times, in these cases the pollen is carried from plant to plant by the wind or by the nectar-seeking bees. These busy bees, with their fluffy little feet and fuzzy coats, become completely covered with this all-important flower dust, and in seeking nectar from other flowers they leave the "awakening dust" behind, and thus cross-fertilization takes place; new types of babies are produced, new generations of fruits and flowers.