[PARTS OF A FLOWER.]
Whenever we study science we have some hard names to learn. One advantage that scientific people have over others is that they know how to apply precise names to things. A botanist, for example, does not speak of flower leaves. He says sepals if he means the outside green leaves; petals, if the inside, colored. A complete flower has four distinct parts or organs.
In early spring the big trees and little plants awake out of a long nap and bestir themselves to grow. They have a good deal to do, and they set to work very industriously. Ants and bees are not busier than plants in spring. At first the awakened plant thinks only of forming fresh branches and lovely expanding green leaves. But after a time it seems to say to itself, "I must not forget to make seed, so that if I should die in the autumn my race may not die with me, but live on and on."
The plant may not be going to die in autumn. It may be a perennial, living year after year. But it always acts as if it might perish, and provides against contingencies. Plants which live one year only are called annuals.
In order to produce a flower, the branch stops growing in length. The end becomes a receptacle. First, upon the receptacle comes a circle of small green leaves, called a calyx; separately, sepals. Sometimes the calyx is not cut up into sepals, but makes a little round vase, notched or pointed, in which the rest of the flower is held. Inside the calyx, and just a bit higher up, appear the colored petals, the beautiful and fragrant parts of a flower. It is the corolla. Like the calyx, sometimes the corolla is a vase or cup, and it is a monopetalous corolla.
If you want to speak of both calyx and corolla in one word, you may say perianth. Floral envelopes mean the same thing. The purpose of these parts of a flower is, mainly, to cover and protect the seed while ripening. A second purpose, and probably the reason why they are so prettily colored and sweetly fragrant, is to attract insects. This we will talk about later. But we shall smell of a rose and admire it just as much, as if it were made for our special enjoyment. All the same, if the plant did not protect its seed, and invite insects to crawl into its tubes, I fear all flowers would be like the lizardtail to secure which I once nearly fell into the water. I had to cross an old rotten mill-dam, over and through which water was trickling, step on slippery stones, catch hold of a tree with one hand, and reach away down with the other. One foot got wet, but that was a trifle. I plucked my lizardtail, and have it now in my herbarium. It has no calyx and corolla, only the two organs essential to making seed, called stamens and pistils.
Next to the petals, and slightly higher, the stamens stand like little soldiers with caps on, in a circle, or two or more circles. The stem is called filament, a word meaning thread-like. The cap is an anther, containing in one or two pockets a fine yellow or brown dust—the pollen. You may get pollen on your nose if you smell of a lily; for when the anther-pockets split open, the pollen lies around loose, and gets on anything that touches it. Bees collect it in pouches on their legs, and make bread of it for their winter use.