Flowers and their friends

by Margaret Warner Morley

For my bee, but none for thee,

For thee, none for thee.

OVULE CELLS.

You will be glad to know that the little ovules at the heart of the morning-glory and of all other flowers are single cells.

They have an outside wall and are filled with protoplasm.

When a pollen cell is formed from the inside of the anther, it separates and is no longer connected with anything. This is not the case with the ovule. It is fastened to the ovary by a little stem, for it will stay there and grow; and it must have a way to get food from its parent plant. It gets the food through this little stem.

You know what happens when the flower opens.

The bees bring pollen, and the protoplasm of the pollen joins that of the ovule. As soon as this happens the ovule begins to change. We say it grows. It gets the food to grow on from the mother plant through the little stem which is fastened to the inside of the ovary.

The protoplasm in the ovule first divides and makes two cells instead of one. These two cells do not entirely separate from each other. They stay together to do their work. Soon each of them divides into more cells. These cells again divide, and this continues until a great many cells are formed. Meantime the ovule has increased in size as well as complexity, and its cells do several different kinds of work. In the morning-glory, for instance, some build a hard outer wall about the young plant; this is the seed-case. Other cells form two little leaves; others make a little stub of a stem. So the change goes on until the single-celled ovule becomes a many-celled seed with a young plant rolled up under its walls. If you open a morning-glory seed you can see this little baby plant, only you will have to soak the seed first to soften the food that is stored about the young plant.