. Handbook of nature-study for teachers and parents, based on the Cornell nature-study leaflets. Nature study. of the spur, we can see the upper petals extending back into it, making a somewhat double-barreled nectary. If we look into a larkspur flower just opened, we see below the petals a bunch of green anthers, hanging by white threadlike filaments to the center of the flower and looking like a bunch of liUiputian bananas. Behind these anthers is an undeveloped stigma, not visible as yet. After the flower has been open for a short time, three or four of the anthers rise up and stand within
. Handbook of nature-study for teachers and parents, based on the Cornell nature-study leaflets. Nature study. of the spur, we can see the upper petals extending back into it, making a somewhat double-barreled nectary. If we look into a larkspur flower just opened, we see below the petals a bunch of green anthers, hanging by white threadlike filaments to the center of the flower and looking like a bunch of liUiputian bananas. Behind these anthers is an undeveloped stigma, not visible as yet. After the flower has been open for a short time, three or four of the anthers rise up and stand within the lower petals; while in this position, their white pollen bursts from them, and no bee may then thrust her tongue into the nectar-spur without being powdered with pollen. As soon as the anthers have discharged their pollen, they shrivel and their places are taken by fresh ones. It may require two or three days for all the anthers to lift up and get rid of their pollen. After this has been accomplished, the three white, closely adhering pistils lift up their three stigmas in the self-same path to the nectar; and now they are ready to receive the pollen which the blundering bee brings from other flowers. Since we cannot always study the same flower for several conse- cutive days, we can read the whole story by studying the flowers freshly opened on the upper portion of the stalk, and those below them that are in more advanced stages. The bees, especially the bumblebee, will tell the pollenation story to us in the garden. The contrasting color of the petals and sepals tells her where to alight; this she does accurately, and the inconsequential lower petals seem made for her to grasp; she presses them to her breast with her front and middle legs with a dramatic, almost ecstatic, gesture that is comical to wit- ness, and holds them firmly while she thrusts her head into the opening between them; she probes the spur twice, evidently finding there the two nectar-wells. It is^a fasc
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