As things alter so strangely under the microscope, father, how would our dust look there?
No two plants have the same shaped pollen, which is of all possible forms. The tiny grains are generally each enclosed in a delicate bag, the subtle powder of which is more like smoke than anything else, in which are particles of starch or drops of oil.
But our orchis does not seem to have a regular anther, for the pollen looks all of a heap.
That is correct. But which do you fancy is the Pistil?
I don’t know, unless it be that in the middle surrounded by the stamens. This is a thread, too, with a knob at the top.
The support is the Style, and the summit is the Stigma. When you examine flowers you will observe the stigma of various shapes and sizes; but there is always a sticky substance on the top. Does the pistil rise from the same place as the stamens?
No, it comes from a lump at the bottom.
That lump is the Ovary, or seed basket, sometimes known as the Germen. Some botanists believe that the several parts of flowers are only metamorphosed, or changed leaves, and that the pistil is one of these growing vertically. You have seen in a double stock, or other double flower, that the stamens have grown into petals.
But why is it that the corolla falls off so soon? I have seen our garden beds strewn with blossoms, and yet the stamens and pistils keep on much longer.