“IN a few days, even in a few hours, a flower withers. Pistils, stamens, calyx, fade and die. Only one thing survives: the ovary, which will become fruit.

“Now, in order to outlive the other parts of the flower and remain on its stem when all the rest dries up and falls, the ovary, at the moment when blossoming is at its greatest vigor, receives a supplement of strength, I should almost say a new life. The magnificence of the corolla, its sumptuous colorings, its perfumes, serve to celebrate the solemn moment when this new vitality comes to the ovary. This great act accomplished, the flower has had its day.

Grains of Pollen

“Well, it is the pollen, the yellow dust of the stamens, that gives this increase of energy without which the nascent seeds would perish in the ovary, itself withered. It falls from the stamens on to the stigma, always coated with a stickiness apt to hold it; and from the stigma, it makes its mysterious action felt in the depths of the ovary. Animated with new life, the nascent seeds develop rapidly, while the ovary swells so as to give them necessary room. The final result of this incomprehensible travail is the fruit, with its contents of seeds ready to germinate and produce new plants. Do not question me further about these wonderful things concerning which even the keenest observer ceases to see clearly. God only, the wisest of beings, knows how a grain of pollen can give birth to something that was not before, and can cause the ovary to feel the stirring of the vital principle.

“I will tell you now how we know that the falling of the pollen on to the stigma is indispensable to the development of the ovary into fruit.

“Most flowers have both stamens and pistils. All those we have just looked at are in that class. But there are plants that have some flowers with stamens and others with pistils. Sometimes the flowers with stamens only and those with pistils only are found on the same plant; sometimes they are found on separate plants.

“Did I not fear to overcharge your memory, I would tell you that plants having flowers with stamens only and flowers with pistils only on the same plant are called mon?cious plants. This expression means ‘living in one house.’ In a word, the flowers with stamens and those with pistils live together in the same house, since they are found on the same plant. The pumpkin, cucumber, melon, are mon?cious plants.

“Vegetables whose flowers with stamens and flowers with pistils are found on different plants are termed di?cious; that is to say, plants with a double house. By this is meant that the ovary and pollen are not found in the same plant. The locust, date, and hemp are di?cious.

Flowering branch of Locust Tree

“The locust is a tree of extreme southern France. Its fruit grows in pods similar to those of the pea, but brown, very long, and plump. This fruit, in addition to seeds, has a sugary flesh. Supposing we took a notion, if the climate permitted, to grow locust seeds in our garden. What locust tree must we plant? Evidently the tree with pistils, because it alone possesses the ovaries which become fruit. But that is not enough. Planted by itself, the locust tree with pistils will be able to blossom abundantly every year, without ever producing any fruit; for its flowers would fall without leaving a single ovary on the branches. What is wanting? The action of the pollen. Close to the locust with pistils let us plant one with stamens. Now fructification proceeds as we wish. Wind and insects carry the pollen from the stamens to the stigma............