What Every Mother Should Know; or, How Six Little Children Were Taught The Truth

by Margaret Sanger

Chapter II.
The Flowers.

We learned that that Buttercup family lived within the petals of the Buttercup House. And we learned that the pollen from the stamen, or father, must reach the pistil, or mother, before the little eggs or seeds contained in the mother can begin to grow and develop into new plants. But the flower cannot move about as can animals, so they must depend on insects and outsiders to bring the pollen into the little nest where the eggs are. But unless there is some object attracting insects, bees, moths and butterflies, etc., to visit the flowers, they would not come to them, so the flowers have many attractions, such as their color and their odor. But the most important, and one which is sweet is the little bag of nectar or honey contained in many flowers which all insects love and will go far to get. When the insect visits the father, it rubs against his pollen, the pollen sticks to his head or legs. Then as he visits the mother, if the stigma (which is the top of the pistil, or mother) is ready for the pollen, it shows this by becoming moist, and sometimes sticky. Then the pollen clings to the stigma, and down it goes through its tiny tube, to the little nest of ovules, or seeds, where it mates and at once causes the seeds to become alive. Then they grow and grow until their time comes to burst forth and develop new plants themselves.

Now, it is also important that the little visitors who come for the nectar, or honey, should fly from flower to flower and not crawl, because in doing so the pollen would drop off and never reach the mother flower, who is anxiously awaiting this important substance, so that the little seeds, or babies, may begin to grow. Consequently they have many ways of keeping out the crawling insects. Mrs. Buttercup has a very hairy stem, which makes a very hard journey for Mrs. Ant and others to come into the Buttercup house for a little sip of honey. She often starts there, but gets so tired out that she gives up the trip and returns to her family without any honey for them. This plan of growing a hairy stem is only one of the interesting ways the flowers have of keeping out the insects who cannot help them carry out the one object for which they exist—to make more flowers.

Some of the flowers have a little trap door to their sac of honey, which only the weight of the bee can open. Others keep their nectar in long tubes, so that only bees with long tongues can reach it. An example of this is in the Orchid of Madagascar, which has a nectar tube eleven inches long, and depends upon one certain kind of moth for its existence.

It is related that when Darwin was confronted with the evidence of this flower as against one of his theories he insisted that such an insect must live—even before it had been discovered! Again, other flowers keep their petals closed, and the petals must be forced apart in order to get the honey by a strong bumblebee. The flowers that are fertilized by the insects are called “insect loving.” Those that are fertilized by the wind are called “wind loving,” etc.

The buttercup was thought not to need the insects to carry its pollen to the stigma—it was for some time thought to be what is called self-fertilizing. But the discovery of the small sac of nectar shows that it must have a purpose, and that purpose to attract insects to bring pollen from other father flowers to fertilize the tiny seeds.

The stigma is not always ready to accept the pollen, but when it is ready it becomes moist, and in some flowers sticky, which shows it is in condition to accept the pollen or is ready to mate and that the seeds are ready for their development. This condition often lasts only a few hours, but sometimes a few days.

The boys had now been taught and had seen how the pollen reaches the baby seeds. They had been taught the importance of the pollen for the growth of the seeds. They had seen that after the pollen reaches the seeds, that they are given new life, that they remain right in their little nest and are nourished by the pistil or mother flower, until they are full grown or matured. Now as this process is the whole object of the individual plant, what happens then?

The boys were shown that as soon as the seeds begin to grow, the petals, on the mother flower, begin to wither, and it seemed as if the flower gave of its beauty, form and youth in order that the baby seeds should grow and mature.