Plants and their children

by Frances Theodora Parsons

What happens when a healthy seed falls on moist ground?

Why, it seems to take in the moisture, and to thrive upon it. It swells up, and at last it bursts open, and it sends a root down into the earth.

Now, something not altogether unlike this happens when a lily dust grain falls upon the moist tip of a lily pistil. The dust grain sucks in the moisture. It grows bigger and bigger. The outer skin becomes too small for the swelling contents. At last it bursts open, letting out a little tube.

This little tube works its way down through the stalk of the pistil, almost as a root pushes down into the earth, and at last it reaches one of the seeds in the seedbox below.

And into this tiny seed the little tube pushes its way.

Fig. 186

The tube has carried with it that speck of wonderful living material which every dust grain holds. And when this living speck has been added to that which the seed already holds, a great change begins to come about.

This new touch of life, added to that already present, gives the lily seed the power to grow into a lily plant.

The other dust grains that were brushed upon the flat top of the lily’s pistil act in just the same way. Apparently without difficulty the different tubes find their way to the different seeds, till at last each one has received the fresh touch of life without which it cannot grow into a lily plant.