and it was always in June that the great crimson rose bloomed on the grave in the garden of the Princess Beautiful."
"And did the lily ever bloom again?" asked little Prue.
"I'm sure it must have done so. We always speak of roses and lilies as belonging together, and there is a great golden lily called the Superbus, which I think might have been the beautiful youth that came to the white palace."
"Does the story mean that we shouldn't care too much for our gardens?" asked Davy. "More than for folks, I mean?"
"Do you know, Davy," said the Chief Gardener, "I was just wondering about that, too."
III
THE SUN IS THE GREATEST OF ALL CHEMISTS
It was about a week later, that one afternoon little Prue and Davy and the Chief Gardener were helping big Prue with her roses, and admiring all the different kinds. Little Prue had been thinking a good deal about roses since the story of the Princess Beautiful, and wondering just which of the climbing red ones had grown about her grave. Then she began to wonder about all the kinds, and how they came. She spoke about this now, as her mamma pointed out one which she said was a new rose—just offered for sale that year.
"Where did it come from?" asked the little girl, "where do new roses come from?"
"From seed," answered the Chief Gardener, "like the new peaches and apples I told you of. Roses belong to the same family, you know, and they are grafted much in the same way. Then the seeds are planted, and from these, fine new kinds are likely to come. Rose-growers are always trying hard to make new kinds by mixing the pollen. The pollen, you remember, is the yellow powder on the little tips of the stamens. These tips, as I believe I told you, are called anthers, and the slender part of the stamen is the filament. It is the pollen falling from the anthers upon the single green stem or pistil in the center of the flower that produces the seed. The pistil is divided in parts, too. The little top piece is called the stigma, and the slender green stem is called the style. The pollen falls on the stigma and is drawn down through the style to give life to the seed-pod below."