“IT would be knowing a person very little only to be aware of his wearing a garment of a certain material, a coat of such and such a cloth. One does not know a flower any better when one knows that it is clothed with a calyx and a corolla. What is under this covering?

A flowering branch of the Gillyflower

“Let us examine together this gillyflower. It has a calyx of four sepals and a corolla of four yellow petals. I take away these eight pieces. What is left now is the essential part; that is to say, the thing without which the flower could not fill its r?le and would be perfectly useless. Let us go carefully over this remaining part. You will find it well worth the trouble.

“First, there are six little white rods, each one surmounted by a bag full of yellow powder. These six pieces are called stamens. They are found in all flowers in greater or less number. The gillyflower has six, four longer ones arranged in pairs, and two shorter.

“The double bag that surmounts the stamen is called an anther. The dust contained in the anther is known as pollen. It is yellow in the gillyflower, lily, and most plants; ashy gray in the poppy.”

“You have already told us,” Jules interposed, “how clouds of pollen, raised by the wind in the woods, are the cause of supposed showers of sulphur that frighten people so.”

“I take away the six stamens. There remains a central body, swollen at the bottom, narrow at the top, and surmounted by a kind of head wet with a sticky moisture. In its entirety this central body takes the name of pistil; the swelling at the bottom is called an ovary, and the sticky head that terminates it is a stigma.”

“What big names for such little things!” exclaimed Jules.

“Little, yes; but of unparalleled importance. These little things, my dear friend, give us our daily bread; without the miraculous work of these little things we should die of hunger.”

“I will take care to remember their names, then.”

“I, too,” chimed in Emile; “but you must go over them again, they are so hard to learn.”

Uncle Paul began again. Jules and Emile repeated after him: stamen, anther and pollen; pistil, stigma and ovary.

“With a penknife I divide the flower in two. The split ovary shows us what is inside.”

“I see little seeds in regular rows in two compartments,” observed Jules.

“Do you know what those hardly visible seeds are?”

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