But all its pollen is gone! The bees and the birds have carried it away. The bees ate some and carried some home to their hives. None remains for the five-rayed stigma. But here comes a bee, a large, yellow-banded bumblebee. She has a ball of red pollen in each of her two baskets. She gathered it in another tropæolum blossom, and intends to take it home to feed the young bees; but as she enters our pollenless flower for nectar, lo! she brushes aside the five-rayed stigma. A few grains of pollen from her legs cling to the stigma, for it is sticky and holds them.
The bee hurries away. She does not know what she has done; she does not know that in brushing aside the stigma that stood in her way she has given life to the seeds and provided for a new generation of tropæolum vines.
The flower gave pollen to its neighbors, and now in its need they have sent pollen to it.
Soon the bright corolla fades and falls. Its work is done. It expressed its joy in life; it called the bees, and by them sent pollen to its neighbors, and took pollen from them in return.
For many days it kept its long red horn full of sweet nectar, until its stigma rose and took the pollen, when the flower faded and fell. But the five-rayed stigma did not fall. It remained attached to the green little fruit that lay hid in the heart of the flower.
It is not easy to see this fruit when the flower first opens, for it is small and hidden by the stamens.
But after the pollen has reached the stigma the fruit grows rapidly. The corolla falls, and the stem that holds the fruit curls up. It curls up until it has drawn the green fruit down under the leaves, out of the way of the buds that wish to open. The stigma and style fall off at last, and leave the fruit to ripen alone.
WHO LIES CURLED UP?
