[Illustration: [Flower]]
The morning-glory and the bracted bindweed might be taken for sisters,
they look so much alike. There is no doubt but that they are closely
related, although the bindweed grows wild and the morning-glory has to
be sown by us.
The bindweed lives in the country and twines over the hedges by the
roadside; you can see its pink-and-white flowers all summer long if you
look in the right places.
It is a jolly sort of life the bindweed leads, always twining, twining,
twining, with its leaves facing the sunshine and its flowers dancing on
their slender stems.
We often call the bindweed the wild morning-glory, and we and the bees
are fond of it. We enjoy looking at it, and probably the bees do, too,
though they have yet another reason for liking it. Just watch one go
into a wild morning-glory some fine day. You will think she expects to
find something very delightful indeed from the way she hurries in. And
so she does. She buzzes down the white line to the very bottom of the
flower, crowds her head as far in as she can get it, and then thrusts
her long brown tongue yet deeper in to where the honey lies. For the
flower makes honey for the bee, and keeps it hidden as deep as possible.
There are five openings in the bottom of the flower cup that go straight
into the honey wells. You need only look into a morning-glory and you
will see them. All kinds of morning-glories, as well as the bindweeds,
have them.
The bees know this, and wherever you see the morning-glories you will
see their little winged friends.
Very many flowers provide honey for the insects, and it is fortunate for
us that they do; for if they did not, we should see no butterflies and
have no honey, for butterflies and bees cannot live without the honey
the flowers give them.
Flower honey has a special name; we often call it nectar, for a good
reason which I mean to tell you another time.
The places where the nectar is stored are the nectar holders, or
nectaries.
It must be a fine thing to go to a flower and take a drink of honey
whenever you wish; but what will you say when I tell you the bees get
bread as well as honey from the flowers?
Yet this is what happens. You could not live upon honey alone; neither
could a bee. Perhaps you could not live upon bread and honey; but you
could if you were a bee, that is, _beebread_ and honey.
For beebread is much more nutritious than the bread we eat. In fact, it
takes the place of meat and eggs and milk and all the other things we
take such pains to get.
You do not see where a bee finds bread in a flower?
That is because you are not a bee. If you were, you would know at once.
Suppose you watch a bee go into a morning-glory.
She will be in a great hurry, and you will have to keep your eyes open,
or all will be over before you know what has happened.
She will suck up the honey, and then very likely she will turn around
and around on the white pole-like part that stands up in the middle of
the flower. She is not doing this for fun, nor because she is confused
and does not know which way to go next.
She is gathering fine flour of which to make beebread.
Put your finger into the morning-glory and you, too, may gather this
fine flour.
When you take your finger out there will be something like fine white
powder clinging to it. Well, that is the flour from which the bee makes
her beebread. We call it _pollen_, and if we look closely we shall find
it is stored in five tiny boxes.
These boxes, which are called _anthers_, open by a slit along one side,
and the bee puts her funny little feet into the slits and scrapes out
the pollen, which she moistens with honey and packs into baskets on her
hindermost legs, or fastens to the hairs on the under side of her body.
Then she goes home and packs her load away in the hive for future use.
You see it is not much trouble to make beebread—that is, if you know
how. It does not have to be raised or baked, yet I doubt if you or I
would be able to make it so that a bee would consider it fit to eat.
[Illustration: Anther. Filament. The Stamen.]
These anthers are held up on long white stalks which grow to the inside
of the flower cup, and which are named _filaments_.
Since there are five anthers there are five filaments.
We call the whole thing, anther and filament, a _stamen_.
But this is not all there is to be found in a morning-glory flower.
There is something else, and if it were not for this something else we
should not have the fun of learning about honey and stamens, because
there would be none! Both honey and stamens exist because of this
something else.
It is in the very center of the flower, and the stamens stand about it
in a circle. It stands up like a pole and has a knob at the top. The
knob sticks out above the stamens as a rule. When the flower cup falls,
the stamens fall too, because the filaments grow fast to it. But this
something else does not fall. It stays on the vine, and you can see it
better after the flower cup has fallen.
We call it the _pistil_. It has neither honey nor pollen, yet on its
account the bees and butterflies visit the flowers.
[Illustration: THE PISTIL.]
Here is its picture, and you may look at it as carefully as you please.
The knob at the top is called the _stigma_, the long, slender part is
called the _style_, and the round bottom the _ovary_.
If you look over all the vine you will make a discovery. You will find a
great many of these pistils in different stages of growth. When the
flower cup first falls off, the pistil is very small and has its style
and stigma. Then the style and stigma fall, and only the ovary remains.
This grows larger and plumper, and you tell me it is the seed-pod, and
is full of seeds. You are right about that; it _is_ the seed-pod, and
the pistil is the part where the seeds grow.
So now you see how very important it is, and I would advise you to take
another look at it.
If there were no seeds there could be no more plants, so the growth of
the seed is a matter of great importance.
When the seed first begins to form it is tiny and soft and delicate. It
is attached to the inside of the ovary, and we do not then call it a
seed, but an ovule. The word “ovule” means “little egg,” and the ovules
are really the eggs of the plant, as you will agree if you think a
moment.
If all goes well, the tiny, soft ovule becomes a large, hard seed. But
it cannot do this alone; it needs help. Probably you never could guess
what helps it, so I will tell you at once: it is the pollen.
If a pollen grain can unite with an ovule, the two thus joined together
can grow into a seed. So you see the flower does not provide pollen for
the use of the bee alone. It makes it for its own seed-children.
But the bee is the messenger that carries the pollen to the ovule. You
see the pollen grain of our morning-glory lies in the anther below the
stigma, and it must reach the stigma so as to find its way down to the
ovary. Just how all this comes about you will know later; only now
remember that the pollen must get to the stigma, and that the bee puts
it there. Not on purpose, though. The bee collects pollen for her own
use, but in doing so touches the stigma with her pollen-covered body,
and some of the pollen grains stick to the stigma instead of remaining
on the bee.
When the pistil is ripe, the stigma is sticky and holds fast the pollen
grains that touch it. The union of ovule and pollen is called
_fertilization_, and by flying about from flower to flower the insects
carry pollen from one flower to another, and thus fertilize the plants.
You will know a great deal more about this later.
So we see the pollen is made for the sake of the seeds. The honey is
also made for the sake of the seeds, for it attracts the insects that
are necessary to fertilize the flower. Even the flower cup has its
bright and beautiful coloring to attract the attention of the insects
and call them to it. The name of the flower cup is the “corolla,” and
means “a little crown” or “garland.”
The corolla is not the only covering the inner parts have. Look at the
end of the flower next the stem and you will see the green calyx. When
the corolla falls off, the calyx stays and protects the tender ovary.
The calyx has five parts, or sepals, and these fold about the ovary like
a green cup and keep it safe.
[Illustration: Calyx.]
When the ovules are ready for the pollen, the flower puts on its
beautiful garland as a sign that the life of the plant is to be renewed.
When we look at the flowers in the fields and gardens we may know that
their loveliness is also a promise for the future.