Why, a great deal, to be sure. If it were not for cells and protoplasm there would be no people.
And how could you have football games and picnics without people, I should like to know?
POLLEN CELLS.
In the dark little dungeon cells of the anthers, the pollen grains lie. Hundreds, and sometimes thousands of them, are packed in there as closely as they can be. But they do not mind it, not in the least. They grow and get ripe, and as soon as this happens, their prison door opens and out they pour.
They are funny little things, not at all what they seem to be. For you would think they were just little specks of dust of almost no shape at all. But that is your fault, or rather the fault of your eyes.
You see your eyes were not meant to look at things so tiny as pollen grains. You can see a common ball or even a small shot very well indeed; but when it comes to pollen grains you are as blind as a mole. You will have to put on your spectacles to see that, I can tell you, and very powerful spectacles they will have to be, too. The best spectacles for you to look through are the ones we call a microscope. Just put your eye to that tube and you will see what you will see, for there are pollen grains at the other end—pollen grains from several kinds of flowers; there are some in the corner from our friend the morning-glory. And now you know what I meant when I said you could not see a pollen grain; for those little specks of dust have all at once become large and important objects. Some are round and some are not, and all are creased or pitted or ridged or covered with little points or marked in some other way. Now you see why they stick so easily to the hairs on the bee or the butterfly or whatever comes visiting the flowers for nectar. They are not smooth, but all roughened over by these ridges and points.
And this is not the end of it. You have not yet seen a pollen grain. You have only seen the outside of one.
For it has an inside. You think it is too small to have anything inside of it?