Chapter XXXVII: Part III: Plant Life (7)

After the petals fall, the little pod is very small, but its growth is as astonishing as that of Jack’s beanstalk; it finally attains a slim length of three inches, and often more. It is grooved, the groove running straight from its rimmed base to its rosy tip; but later a strange twisting takes place. If we open one of these capsules, lengthwise, we must admire the orderly way in which the little green seeds are fastened by delicate white threads, in two crowded rows, the whole length of the pod.

The leaf is delicately cut and makes the foliage a fine mass, but each leaf is quite regular in its form. It has a long, flattened petiole, which broadens and clasps the stem somewhat at its base. Its blade has five main divisions, each of which is deeply cut into fingerlike lobes. The color of this foliage and its form show adaptations to desert conditions.

This plant has a long, smooth tap root, especially adapted for storing food and moisture needed during the long, dry California summers; for it is perennial in its native state, although in the wintry East, we plant it as an annual.

LESSON CLVI

THE CALIFORNIA POPPY

_Leading thought_--The California poppy is a native of California. It blossoms during the months of February, March and April in greatest abundance. It is found in the desert as well as among the foothills.

_Method_--If possible, the students should study this in the garden. In the East, it flowers until frost comes, and affords a delightful subject for a September lesson. In California it should be studied in the spring, when the hills are covered with them. But the plant may be brought into the schoolroom, root and all, and placed in a jar, under which conditions it will continue to blossom.

_Observations_--1. Look at the California poppy as a whole and tell, if you can, why it is so beautiful when in blossom.

2. Look at the flower bud. What sort of a stem has it? What is the shape of the stem just below the bud? What is the color of the little rim on which the bud rests? What peculiarity has this bud? Describe the little cap.

3. Watch a flower unfold. What happens to the “toboggan cap?” How does the bud look after the cap is gone? What is its appearance when the petals first open? When they are completely open?

4. Describe the anthers. How do they stand when the flower first opens? How later? Can you see the stigmas at first? Describe them as they look later.

5. Does the poppy remain open at night? Does it remain open during cloudy or rainy weather? Why?

6. Do the petals have the same position that they did in the bud? As the flower matures, note how each petal curls. Do they all fall at once? Are there any anthers left after the petals fall?

7. How does the little pod look when the petals first fall? What happens to it later? Note the little rim at its base. Cut the seed-pod open lengthwise, examine the seeds with a lens, and describe how they are fastened to the sides of the pod. Are the ribs straight from end to end in the pod at first? Do they remain in this position? How does the pod open and scatter its seeds?

8. Study the leaf of this California poppy. Describe how it joins the stem. Sketch a leaf showing its chief divisions into leaflets and how each leaflet is divided. Note that the juice of the stem has the peculiar odor of muriatic acid.

9. Look at the root. Do you think it is fitted to sustain the plant through a long, dry summer? What kind of summers do they have in California? Where does the poppy grow wild?

10. Read all the accounts you can find of the California poppy, and write a little theme describing why it was chosen as the flower of that great State, and how it came by its name.

* * * * *

_In a low brown meadow on a day
Down by the autumn sea,
I saw a flash of sudden light
In a sweep of lonely gray;
As if a star in a clouded night
One moment had looked on me
And then withdrawn; as if the spring
Had sent an oriole back to sing
A silent song in color, where
Other silence was too hard to bear._

_I found it and left it in its place,
The sun-born flower in cloth of gold
That April owns, but cannot hold
From spending its glory and its grace
On months that always love it less,
But take its splendid alms in their distress.
Back I went through the gray and the brown,
Through the weed-woven trail to the distant town;
The flower went with me, fairly wrought
Into the finest fiber of my thought._
--A CALIFORNIA POPPY IN NOVEMBER, IRENE HARDY.

THE NASTURTIUM

_Teacher’s Story_

“_Little warriors, brave and fearless, with shields of
emerald green,
Are climbing over fence rails, and everywhere are seen
Looking down on every side, while her brave Nasturtium
army,
Queen Nature views with pride._”
--RAY LAURENCE.

It is quite fitting that the nasturtium leaves should be shaped like shields, for that is one of their uses; they are shields to protect the young nasturtium seeds from the hot sun and from the view of devouring enemies. The nasturtiums are natives of Peru and Chili, and it is fitting that the leaves should develop in shield-shape, and the shields overlap until they form a tent to shade the tender developing fruit from the burning sun. But they were never meant to shield the flower, which thrusts its brilliant petals out between the shields, and calls loudly to the world to admire it. It would indeed be a pity for such a remarkable flower to remain hidden; its five sepals are united at their base, and the posterior one is extended into a long spur, a tube with a delectable nectar-well at its tip. The five petals are set around the mouth of this tube, the two upper ones differing in appearance and office from those below; these two stand up like a pair of fans, and on them are lines which converge; on the upper sepals are similar lines pointing toward the same interesting spot. And what do all these lines lead to, except a veritable treasure-cave filled with nectar! The lower petals tell another story; they stand out, making a platform, or doorstep, on which the visiting bee alights. But it requires a big insect to do the work of this flower, and what if some inefficient little bee or fly should alight on the petal-doorstep and steal into the cave surreptitiously! This contingency is guarded against thus: Each of these lower petals narrows to a mere insect footbridge at their inner end; and in order to render this footbridge quite impassable, it is beset with irregular little spikes and projecting fringes, sufficient to perplex or discourage any small insect from crawling that way.

But why all these guiding lines and guarded bridges? If you watch the same blossom for several successive days, it will reveal this secret. When a flower first opens, the stamens are all bent downward, but when an anther is ready to open its pollen doors, the filament lifts it up and places it like a sentinel blocking the doorway to the nectar treasure. Then when the robber comes, whether it be butterfly, bee or hummingbird, it gets a round of pollen ammunition for its daring. Perhaps there may be two or three anthers standing guard at the same time, but, as soon as their pollen is exhausted, they shrivel and give room for fresh anthers. Meanwhile, the stigma has its three lobes closed and lying idly behind and below the anthers; after all the pollen is shed, the style raises and takes its position at the cave entrance and opens up its stigmas, like a three-tined fork, to rake the pollen from any visiting insect, thus robbing the robber of precious gold-dust which shall fertilize the seeds in its three-lobed ovary. Although the flower needs to flare its colors wide to call the bees and hummingbirds, yet the growing seeds must be protected; therefore, the stem which held the flower up straight, now twists around in a spiral and draws the triplet seeds down behind the green shields.

1. _Nasturtium flower in early stage of blossoming. Note the
anthers lifted in the path to the nectar which is indicated by
the arrow. The closed stigma is shown deflected at_ a.

2. _The same flower in later stage; the anthers are empty and
deflected. The stigma is raised_ (a) _in the nectar path_.
]

Nasturtium leaves are very pretty, and are often used as subjects for decorative water-color drawings. The almost circular leaf has its stem attached below and a little at one side of the center; the leaves are brilliant green above but quite pale beneath, and are silvery when placed beneath the water. The succulent stems have a way of twisting half around the wires of the trellis and thus holding the plant secure to its support. But if there is no trellis, the main stem seems to awaken to the responsibility and grows quite stocky, often lifting the plant a foot or two in height, and from its summit sending out a fountain of leaf and flower stems.

The nasturtium is among the most interesting and beautiful of our garden flowers, and will thrive in any warm, sunny, fairly moist place. Its combinations of color are exceedingly rich and brilliant. H. H. says of it:

“_How carelessly it wears the velvet of the same
Unfathomed red, which ceased when Titian ceased
To paint it in the robes of doge and priest._”

LESSON CLVII

THE NASTURTIUM

_Leading thought_--The nasturtium has a special arrangement by which it sends its own pollen to other flowers and receives pollen from other flowers by insect messengers.

_Method_--The nasturtiums and their foliage should be brought into the schoolroom in sufficient quantity so that each child may have a leaf and a flower for study. The object of the lesson is to interest the pupils in studying, in their gardens, one flower from the bud until the petals wither, taking note of what happens each day and keeping a list of the insect visitors.

_Observations_--1. Look at the back of the flower. What is there peculiar about the sepals? How many sepals are there? How many join to make the spur? What is in this spur? Taste of the tip. Find where the nectar is.

2. Look the flower in the face. How do the two upper petals differ in shape from the three lower ones? What markings are there on the upper petals? Where do these lines point? Are there any markings on the sepals pointing in the same direction? If an insect visiting a flower should follow these lines, where would it go?

3. Describe the shape of the lower petals. Suppose a little ant were on one of these petals and she tried to pass over to the nectar-tube or spur, would the fringes hinder her?

4. Look down the throat of the spur, and tell what a bee or other insect would have to crawl over before it could get at the nectar.

5. In your garden, or in the bouquet in the window if you cannot visit a garden, select a nasturtium that is just opening and watch it every day, making the following notes: When the blossom first opens where are the eight stamens? Are the unripe, closed anthers lifted so as to be in the path of the bee which is gathering nectar? How do the anthers open? How is the pollen held up in the path to the nectar? Can you see the stigma of this flower? Where is it? _Note the same flower on successive days_: How many anthers are open and shedding pollen to-day? Are they all in the same position as yesterday? What happens to the anthers which have shed their pollen?

6. When the stigma rises in the nectar path, how does it look? Where are all the anthers when the stigma raises its three tines to rake the pollen off the visiting insect? Do you know why it is an advantage to the nasturtium to develop its seed by the aid of the pollen from another plant?

7. Can you see the beginning of the seed-case when the stigma arises to receive the pollen?

8. The flowers project beyond the leaves. Do the ripening seed-cases do this? What happens to their stems to withdraw them behind the leaf?

9. Sketch a nasturtium leaf, and explain why it is like a shield. How does the leaf look when under water?

10. What sort of stem has the nasturtium? How does it manage to climb the trellis? If it has no trellis to climb, does it lie flat upon the ground?

THE BEE-LARKSPUR

_Teacher’s Story_

Photo by Cyrus Crosby.]

This common flower of our gardens, sending up from a mass of dark, deeply-cut leaves tall racemes of purple or blue flowers, has a very interesting story to tell those who watch it day by day and get acquainted with it and its insects guests. The brilliant color of the flowers is due to the sepals, which are purple or blue, in varying shades; but as if to show that they are sepals instead of petals, each has on the back side near its tip, a green thickened spot. If we glance up the flower stalk, we can see that, in the upper buds, the sepals are green, but in the lower buds they begin to show the blue color; and in a bud just ready to open, we can see that the blue sepals are each tipped with a green knob, and this remains green after the sepals expand. The upper and rearmost sepal is prolonged into a spur, which forms the outside covering of the nectar-spur; it is greenish and wrinkled like a long-wristed, suede glove; two sepals spread wide at the sides and two more below. All this expanse of blue sepals is simply for a background for the petals, which, by their contrasting color, show the bees where to probe for nectar. Such inconsequential petals as they are! Two of them “hold hands” to make an arch over the entrance to the nectar tube; and just below these on each side are two more tiny, fuzzy, spreading petals, often notched at the tip and always hinged in a peculiar way about the upper petal; they stand guard at the door to the nectar storehouse. If we peel off the wrinkled sepal-covering 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 lilliputian 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 consecutive 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.

1, _Drawing of the bee-larkspur flower enlarged_.
2, _The seed capsule of the bee-larkspur_.
]

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 witness, 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 fascinating pastime to follow her as she goes from flower to flower like a Madam Pompadour, powdered with her white pollen. In order that a bee may work on these flowers, it is necessary that they hang vertically. The tips of the tall flower stalks are likely to bend or curl over; but no matter what the direction the broken or bent stem takes, the flowers will twist around on their pedicels until they face the world and the bee, exactly as if they were on a normally erect stem.

All the larkspurs have essentially the same pollen story, although some have only two petals; in every case the anthers at first hang down, and later rise up in the path to the nectar, in order to discharge their pollen; after they wither, the stigmas arise in a similar position.

The bee-larkspur has a very beautiful fruit. It consists of three graceful capsules rising from the same base and flaring out into pointed tips. The seeds are fastened to the curved side of each capsule, which, when ripe, opens so that they may be shaken out by the winds. When studying the bud, we notice two little bracts set at its base and these remain with the fruit.

LESSON CLVIII

THE BEE-LARKSPUR

_Leading thought_--The bee-larkspur begins blossoming early in the season, the blossom stalk elongating and developing new buds at its tip until late in autumn. The flower has a very interesting way of making the bees carry its pollen.

_Method_--Bring to the schoolroom a flower stalk of the bee-larkspur, and there study the structure and mechanism of the flower. This lesson should inspire the pupils to observe for themselves the visiting bees and the maturing seeds. Ask them to write an account of a bumblebee making morning calls on the larkspurs.

_Observations_--1. Which flowers of the larkspur open first--those near the tip of the stem or those below?

2. Examine the buds toward the tip of the flower stalk. What color are the sepals in these buds? Do the sepals change color as the flower opens? Note the little green knobs which tip the closed sepals that clasp the bud. What color are the sepals on the open flower? Is there any green upon them when open?

3. Where is the nectar-spur? Which sepal forms this? How are the other sepals arranged?

1, showing early stage with stigma deflected.
2, showing advanced stage with stigma raised.
]

4. Now that we know the flower gets its brilliant color from its sepals, let us find the petals. Look straight into the flower, and note what forms the contrasting color of the heart of the flower; these are the petals. Can you see that two are joined above the opening into the nectar-tube? How many guard the entrance from below? How are these lower petals hinged about the upper one? Peel a sepal-cover from the nectar-spur, and see if the upper petals extend back within the spur, forming nectar-tubes.

5. Take a flower just opened, and describe what you see below the petals. What is the color of the anthers? Of the filaments? Can you see the stigma?

6. Take a flower farther down the stalk, which has therefore been open longer, and describe the position of the anthers in this. Are there any of them standing upright? Are they discharging their pollen? What color is the pollen? Are these upright anthers in the way of the bee, when she thrusts her tongue into the nectar-tube?

7. Take the oldest flower you can find. What has happened to the anthers? Can you see the pistils in this? In what position now are the stigmas?

8. Push aside the anthers in a freshly opened flower and see if you can find the stigmas. What is their position? How do they change in form and position after the pollen is shed? Do they arise in the path of the bee before all the pollen from the anthers of their own flower is shed? If so, how are they pollenated?

9. _Suggestions for Observation in the Garden_--Watch a bumblebee working on the larkspur and answer the following questions: How does she hold on to the flower? Where does she thrust her tongue? Can she get the nectar without brushing the pollen from the anthers which are lifting up at the opening of the nectar-tube? In probing the older flowers, how would she come in contact with the lifted stigmas? How do the petals contrast in color with the sepals? Does this tell the bees where to look for nectar? Compare the common larkspur with the bee-larkspur, and notice the likeness and difference. What kind of fruit capsules has the bee-larkspur? Describe the seeds, and how they are scattered.

THE BLUE FLAG, OR IRIS

_Teacher’s Story_

_Beautiful lily, dwelling by still rivers
Or solitary mere,
Or where the sluggish meadow brook delivers
Its waters to the weir!_

_The burnished dragon fly is thine attendant,
And tilts against the field,
And down the listed sunbeams rides resplendent
With steel-blue mail and shield._
--From “Flower-de-luce,” HENRY W. LONGFELLOW.

The iris blossom has a strange appearance, and this is because nothing in it is as it seems. The style of the pistil is divided into three broad branches and they look like petals; and they have formed a conspiracy with the sepals to make a tunnel for bees, leaving the petals out of the plan entirely and the sepals “rise to the occasion.” The petals stand up lonely between the three strangely matched pairs, and all they accomplish by their purple guiding lines, is to basely deceive the butterflies and other insects which are in the habit of looking for nectar at the center of a flower. If we look directly down into the flower of the blue flag, there are ridges on the broad styles and purple veins on the petals, all pointing plainly to the center of the flower, and any insect alighting there would naturally seek for nectar-wells where all these lines so plainly lead. But there is an “April fool” for the insects which trust to these guides, for there is no nectar to be had there. Dr. Needham, in his admirable study of this flower and its visitors (American Naturalist, May, 1900), tells us that he has seen the little butterflies called “skippers,” the flag weevils and the flower beetles all made victims of this deceptive appearance; this is evidence that the nectar guiding lines on flowers are noted and followed by insects.

The blue flag is made for bees; the butterflies and beetles are interlopers and thieves at best. The bees are never deceived into seeking the nectar in the wrong place. They know to a certainty that the sepal with its purple and yellow tip and many guiding lines although far from the center of the flower, is the sure path to the nectar. A bee alights on the lip of the sepal, presses forward scraping her back against the down-hanging stigma, then scrapes along the open anther which lies along the roof of the tunnel; and she here finds a pair of guiding lines each leading to a nectar-well at the very base of the sepal. The bees which Dr. Needham found doing the greatest work as pollen-carriers were small solitary bees (_Clisodon terminalis_ and _Osmia destructa_); each of these alighted with precision on the threshold of the side door, pushed its way in, got the nectar from both wells, came out and sought another side door speedily. One might ask why the bee in coming out did not deposit the pollen from its own anther upon the stigma; but the stigma avoids this by hanging down, like a flap to a tent, above the entrance, and its surface for receiving pollen is directed so that it gathers pollen from the entering bee and turns its back to the bee that is just making its exit.

Photo by Verne Morton.]

The arrangement of the flower parts of the iris may be described briefly thus: three petals, three sepals, a style with three branches; the latter being broad and flat and covering the bases of the three sepals, making tubes which lead to the nectar; three anthers lie along the under side of the styles. The wild yellow iris is especially fitted for welcoming the bumblebee as a pollen-carrier, since the door between the style and the sepal is large enough to admit this larger insect. The bumblebees and the honey-bees work in the different varieties of iris in gardens.

1, Side-view of the passage to the nectar.

2, Looking directly into the iris flowers. Note the deceiving
guide-lines in the petals.
]

In some varieties of iris there is a plush rug along the vestibule floor over which the bee passes to get the nectar. Through a lens, this plush is exquisite--the nap of white filaments standing up and tipped with brilliant yellow. Various theories as to the use of this plush have been advanced, the most plausible being that it is to keep the ants out; but the ant could easily pass along either side of it. While holding an iris in my hand, one day in the garden, a bumblebee visited it eagerly, never noting me; after she had probed the nectar-wells, she probed or nibbled among the plush, working it thoroughly on her way out. Was she a foolish bee, or did she find something there to eat? What child will find if other bees do this?

LESSON CLIX

THE BLUE FLAG OR IRIS

_Leading thought_--Each iris flower has three side doors leading to the nectar-wells; and the bees, in order to get the nectar, must brush off the pollen dust on their backs.

_Method_--While the blue flag is the most interesting of our wild species of iris, yet the flower-de-luce, or the garden iris, is quite as valuable for this lesson. The form of the flowers may be studied in the schoolroom, but the pupils should watch the visiting insects in the garden or field.

_Observations_--1. Look for the side doors of the iris blossom. Which part of the flower forms the doorstep? How is it marked to show the way in? Which part of the flower makes the arch above the door?

2. Find the anther, and describe how it is placed. Can you see two nectar-wells? Explain how a bee will become dusted with pollen while getting the nectar.

3. Where is the stigma? What is there very peculiar about the styles of the iris? Can a bee, when backing out from the side door, dust the stigma with the pollen she has just swept off? Why not? How does the stigma of the next flower that the bee visits get some of the pollen from her back?

4. Look straight down into an iris flower. Can you see the three petals? How are they marked? How would these lines on the petals mislead any insect that was searching for nectar?

5. Watch the insects visiting the iris. Do you know what they are? What do they do?

6. Describe the way the iris flower-bud is enfolded in bracts. What is there peculiar about the way the iris leaves join the stem?

7. How many kinds of flag, or iris, do you know?

8. Describe the seed-vessel and seeds of the iris.

Photo by Cyrus Crosby.]

* * * * *

_The fleur-de-lis is the national flower of France._

“_It is said that the Franks of old had a custom, at the
proclamation of a king, of elevating him upon a shield or
target, and placing in his hand a reed, or flag in blossom,
instead of a sceptre._”
--“Among the Flowers and Trees with the Poets”, WAIT AND LEONARD.

_The sunflower. Next to the ray-flowers are the
florets in last stages of blossoming with stigmas
protruding; next within are rows in the earlier
stage with pollen bursting from anther-tubes,
while at center are the unopened buds._
]

THE SUNFLOWER

_Teacher’s Story_

Many of the most beautiful of the autumn flowers belong to the _Compositæ_, a family of such complicated flower arrangement that it is very difficult for the child or the beginner in botany to comprehend it; and yet, when once understood, the composite scheme is very simple and beautiful, and is repeated over and over in flowers of very different appearance. It is a plan of flower cooperation; there are many flowers associated to form a single flower-head. Some of these, the “ray,” or “banner,” flowers, hold out bright pennants to attract the attention of insects; while the disk-flowers, which they surround, attend to the matter of the pollenation and production of seed.

The large garden sunflower is the teacher’s ally to illustrate to the children the story of the composites. Its florets are so large that it is like a great wax model. And what could be more interesting than to watch its beautiful inflorescence--that orderly march toward the center in double lines of anther columns, with phalanxes bearing the stigmas surrounding them; and outside all, the ranks of ray-flowers flaunting their flags to herald to the world this peaceful conquest of the sleeping, tented buds at the center?

Ordinarily, in nature-study we do not pull the flowers apart, as is necessary in botany; in nature-study, all that we care to know of the flower is what it does, and we can see that without dissection. But with the compositæ the situation is quite different. Here we have an assemblage of flowers, each individual doing its own work for the community; and in order to make the pupils understand this fact it is necessary to study the individual florets.

We begin with the study of one of the buds at the center of the flower-head; this shows the white, immature-seed below, and the closed, yellow corolla-tube above. Within the corolla may be seen the brown anther-tube, and on the upper part of the seed are two little, white, earlike scales, to which especial notice should be directed, since in other composites there are many of these scales and they form the pappus--the balloon to carry the seed. The bud shows best the protecting chaffy scale which enfolds the seed, its pointed, spine-edged tip being folded over the young bud, as may be seen by examining carefully the center of a freshly opened sunflower. In this tubular bud (see Fig. p. 632), there is a telescopic arrangement of the organs, and one after another is pushed out. First, the corolla-tube opens, starlike, with five pointed lobes, very pretty and graceful, with a bulblike base; from this corolla pushes out the dark-brown tube, made up of five anthers grown together. By opening the corolla, we see the filaments of the stamens below the joined anthers. This anther tube, if examined through a lens, shows rows of tiny points above and below, two to each anther, as if they had been opened like a book to join edges with their neighbors. The anther-tube is closed at the tip, making a five-sided cone; and at the seams, the yellow pollen bulges out, in starlike rays. The pollen bulges out for good reason, for behind it is the stigma, like a ramrod, pushing all before it in the tube for it is its turn next to greet the outer world. The two stigma-lobes are pressed together like the halves of a sharpened pencil, and they protrude through the anther-tube as soon as all the pollen is safely pushed out; then the stigma-lobes separate, each curling backwards so as to offer a receptive surface to welcome pollen grains from other florets, or even other sunflowers. In the process of curling back, they press the anther-tube down into the corolla, and thus make the floret shorter than when in the pollen stage. The banner-flower differs in many essentials from the perfect florets of the disk. If we remove one from the flower-head, we find at its base a seedlike portion, which is a mere pretense; it is shrunken, and never can be a seed because it has connected with it no stigma to bring to it the pollen. Nor does this flower have stamens nor a tubular corolla; instead it has one great, petallike banner, many times longer and wider than the corollas of the other flowers. All this flower has to do is to hold its banner aloft as a sign to the world, especially the insect world, that here is to be found pollen in plenty, and nectar for the probing.

1. A floret of the sunflower in the bud-stage as it appears at
the center of the sunflower. Note the protecting bract at the
right.

2. A floret in earliest stage of blossoming.

3. A floret in the latest stage of bloom with the parts named.

4. A ray or banner-flower.
]

But more wonderful than the perfection of each floret is their arrangement in the flower-head. Around the edge of the disk the banner-flowers, in double or treble rank, flare wide their long petals like the rays of the sun, making the sunflower a most striking object in the landscape. If the sunflower has been open for several days, next to the ray-flowers will be seen a circle of star-mouthed corollas from which both ripened pollen and stigmas have disappeared, and the fertilized seeds below them are attaining their growth. Next comes a two or three-ranked circle, where the split, coiled-back stigma-lobes protrude from the anther-tubes; within this circle may be two or three rows of florets, where pollen is being pushed out in starry radiance; and within this ring there may be a circle where the anther-tubes are still closed; while at the center lie the buds, arranged in exquisite pattern of circling radii, cut by radii circling in the opposite direction; and at the very center the buds are covered with the green spear-points of their bracts. I never look at the buds in the sunflower without wondering if the study of their arrangement is not the basis of much of the most exquisite decoration in Moorish architecture. To appreciate fully this procession of the bloom of the sunflower from its rim to its center, we need to watch it day by day--then only can its beauty become a part of us.

The great, green bracts, with their long pointed tips, which “shingle” the house of every sunflower family, should be noted with care, because these bracts have manifold forms in the great _Compositæ_ family; and the pupil should learn to recognize this part of the flower-head, merely from its position. In the burdocks, these bracts form the hooks which fasten to the passer-by; in the thistle, they form the prickly vase about the blossom; while in the pearly everlasting, they make the beautiful, white, shell-like mass of the flower which we treasure as immortal. In the sunflower, these bracts are very ornamental, being feltlike outside and very smooth inside, bordered with fringes of pretty hairs, which may be seen best through a lens. They overlap each other regularly in circular rows, and each bract is bent so as to fit around the disk.

In looking at a mass of garden sunflowers, we are convinced that the heavy heads bend the stems, and this is probably true, in a measure. But the stems are very solid and firm, and the bend is as stiff as the elbow of a stovepipe; and after examining it, we are sure that this bend is made with the connivance of the stem, rather than despite it. Probably most people, the world over, believe that sunflowers twist their stems so that their blossoms face the sun all day. This belief shows the utter contentment of most people with a pretty theory. If you believe it, you had best ask the first sunflower you see if it is true, and she will answer you if you will ask the question morning, noon and night. My own observations make me believe that the sunflower, during the later weeks of its bloom, is like the Mohammedan, keeping its face toward the east. True, I have found many exceptions to this rule, although I have seen whole fields of sunflowers facing eastward, when the setting sun was gilding the backs of their great heads. If they do turn with the sun, it must be in the period of earliest blossoming before they become heavy with ripening seeds.

The sunflower seed is eagerly sought by many birds, and it is raised extensively for chicken-feed. The inadequate little pappus falls off, and the seeds are set, large end up, in the very ornamental diamond-shaped sockets. They finally become loosened, and now we see a reason for the bending flower-head; for, as the great stem is assaulted by the winds of autumn, the bended heads shake out their seed and scatter them far afield.

LESSON CLX

THE SUNFLOWER

_Leading thought_--The sunflower is not a single flower, but is a large family of flowers living together; and each little flower, or floret, as it is called, has its own work to do for the family welfare.

_Method_--Early in September, when school first opens, is the time for this lesson. If sunflowers are growing near by, they should be studied where they stand; and their story may thus be more completely told. Otherwise, a sunflower should be brought to the schoolroom and placed in water. If one is selected which has just begun to blossom, it will show, day by day, the advance of the blossoming ranks. I have kept such a flower fourteen days, and it blossomed cheerfully from its rim to its very center. A large sunflower that has only partially blossomed is also needed for taking apart to show the arrangement of this big flower-family. Take a bud from the center, a floret showing anther-tube and another showing the curled pair of stigmas, and a ray or banner-flower. (See Fig. p. 632). Each pupil should be furnished with these four florets; and after they have studied them, show them the other half of the sunflower, with each floret in place. After this preliminary study, let them observe the blossoming sunflower for several consecutive days.

_Observations_--1. A little flower which is part of a big flower-family is called a floret. You have before you three florets of a sunflower and a banner-flower. Study first the bud. Of how many parts is it composed? What will the lower, white part develop into? Can you see two little white points standing up from it on each side of the bud? Note the shape and color of the unopened floret. Note that there is a narrow, stiff, leaf-like bract, which at its base clasps the young seed, while its pointed tip bends protectingly over the top of the bud.

2. Take an open floret with the long, dark brown tube projecting from it. Note that the young seed is somewhat larger than in the bud, and that it still has its earlike projections at the top. Describe the shape of the open corolla. Look at the brown tube with a lens. How many sides has it? How many little points projecting at the top and bottom on each side of the tube? How does the tube look at the tip, through a lens? Can you see the pollen bursting out? If so, how does it look? Do you think that there is just one tubular anther, or do you think several anthers are joined together to make this tube? Open the corolla-tube carefully, and see if you can answer this last question. Open the anther-tube, and see if you can find the pistil with its stigmas.

3. Take a floret with the two yellow horns of the stigma projecting. Where is the brown anther-tube now? Is it as long as in the floret you have just studied? What has happened to it? What did the stigmas do to the pollen in the anther-tube? How do the two parts or lobes of the stigma look when they first project? How later?

4. Make a banner-flower. How many parts are there to it? How does the seedlike portion of the blossom look? Do you think it will ever be a good seed? Describe the corolla of this flower. How much larger is it than the corolla of the florets? Has the banner-flower any pistil or stamens? Of what use is the banner-flower to the sunflower family? Do you think that we would plant sunflowers in our gardens for their beauty if they had no banner-flowers?

5. After studying the separate flowers, study a sunflower in blossom, and note the following: Where are the banner-flowers placed? How many rows are there? How are they set so that their banners make the sunflower look like the sun? Do you see why the central portion of the sunflower is called the disk, and the banner-flowers are called the rays--in imitation of the sun?

6. Next to the banner-flowers, what sort of florets appear? How many rows are there? What kind form the next circle, and in how many rows? What stages of the florets do you find forming the inner circle, and how many rows? What do you find at the center of the flower-head? Note the beautiful pattern in which the buds are arranged. Can you see the separate buds at the very center of the sunflower? If not, why?

7. Make notes on a sunflower that has just opened, describing the stages of the florets that are in blossom; continue these notes every day for a week, describing, each day, what has happened. If the sunflower you are observing is in garden or field, note how many days elapse between the opening of the outer row of flowers and the opening of the central buds.

8. Look below or behind the sunflower, and note the way it is attached to the stem. What covers the disk? These green, overlapping, leaflike structures are called bracts. What is the shape of one of these bracts? What is its texture, outside and inside? Look at it, with a lens, along the edges, and note what you see. How are the bracts arranged? Do they not “shingle” the house in which the sunflower-family lives? This covering of the disk, or the house where the sunflower-family lives, is called the involucre.

9. Does the stem of the sunflower hold it upright? Some people declare that it twists its stem so as to face the sun all day. Do you think this is true?

10. Study a sunflower-head after the seeds are ripe. Do the little ears which you saw at the top of the seeds still remain? How does the sunflower scatter the seeds? Note how the disk looks after the seeds are all gone. What birds are especially fond of sunflower seeds? Of what use are the seeds commercially?

* * * * *

“_Flowers have an expression of countenance as much as men or
animals. Some seem to smile; some have a sad expression; some
are pensive and diffident; others again are plain, honest, and
upright, like the broad-faced Sunflower, and the hollyhock._”
--HENRY WARD BEECHER.

* * * * *

“_Eagle of flowers! I see thee stand,
And on the sun’s noon-glory gaze;
With eye like his thy lids expand
And fringe their disk with golden rays;
Though fixed on earth, in darkness rooted there,
Light is thy element, thy dwelling air,
Thy prospect heaven._”
--“The Sunflower”, MONTGOMERY.

Photo by Cyrus Crosby.]

THE BACHELOR’S BUTTON

_Teacher’s Story_

This beautiful garden flower gives a variation in form from other composites when studied according to Lesson CXXXV. This valued garden flower came to us from Europe and it sometimes escapes cultivation and runs wild in a gentle way. We call it bachelor’s button; but in Europe it is called the cornflower, and under this name it found its way into literature. None of the flowers that live in families repays close study better than does the bachelor’s button. The ray-flowers are tubular but they do not have banners. Their tubes flare open like trumpets, and they are indeed color trumpets heralding to the insect world that there is nectar for the probing and pollen for exchange. Looked at from above, the ray-flowers do not seem tubular; from the sides, they show as uneven-mouthed trumpets with lobed edges; but though we search each trumpet to its slender depths we can find no pistils. These ray-flowers have no duty in the way of maturing seeds. In some varieties the ray-flowers are white, and in others they are blue and purple. They vary in number from 7 to 14, or more.

_Stigma open and showing pollen-brush below. Enlarged._ ]

The disk-flowers have a long corolla-tube, which is white and delicately lobed and is enlarged toward the upper end to a purple bulb with five, long, slender lobes. The anther-tube is purplish black, and is bent into almost a hook, the tip opening toward the middle of the flower-head. The pollen is glistening white tinged with yellow, and looks very pretty as it bursts out from the dark tubes. The purple stigma first appears with its tips close together, but with a pollen brush just below it; later it opens into a short Y. The buds at the center of the flower are bent hook-shaped over the center of the flower-head. The involucral bracts or “shingles” are very pretty, each one ornamented with a scaly fringe; they form a long, elegantly shaped base to the flower-head. After the flowers have gone and the seeds have ripened, these bracts flare open, making a wide-mouthed urn from which the ripened seeds are shaken by the winds; and after the seeds are gone, the white fuzz of their empty cases remains at the bottom of the urn. The seed is plump and shining, with a short fringe of pappus around the top and a contracted place at one side near the base where it grew fast to the receptacle; for these seeds are not set on end, as are those of the sunflower. The short pappus is hardly sufficient to buoy up the seed, and yet undoubtedly aids it to make a flying jump with the passing breeze.

LESSON CLXI

THE BACHELOR’S
BUTTON

_Leading thought_--Each bachelor’s button is made up of many little flowers which may be studied by the outline given in Lesson CXXXV.

THE SALVIA, OR
SCARLET SAGE

_Teacher’s Story_

The flower story of the sage is so peculiar that Darwin has used it to illustrate the mechanisms present in some flowers which the visiting insects must work in order to get the nectar. The scarlet sage, which gladdens our flower beds during the summer and autumn with its brilliance, has as interesting a story as has any of its family. Looking at it from the outside, we should say that its nectar-wells lie too deep to be reached by any insect except a moth or butterfly, or a humming bird; there is no platform for a bee to alight upon, and the tube is too long to be fathomed by a bee’s tongue; but the bees are very good business folk; they adapt themselves to flowers that are not adapted to them, and in autumn the glow of the salvia attracts the eye scarcely more than the hum of the visiting bees attracts the ear.

The calyx of the salvia is as red as the corolla, and is somewhat fuzzy while the corolla is smooth. The calyx is a three-lobed bulging tube held stiff by rather strong veins; there is one large lobe above and two small ones below the corolla. The corolla is a tube which is more than twice the length of the calyx; it is prolonged above into a projecting hood, which holds the anthers and the stigma; it has a short, cuplike lower lip and two little turned-back, earlike lobes at the side.

The special mechanism of the salvia is shown in the stamens; there are two of these lying flat along the floor of the corolla-tube and grown fast to it. Near the mouth of the tube, each of these lifts up at a broad angle to the roof, and is more or less T-shaped, at the tip of one of the arms of the T is an anther while the other arm is longer and slants down and inward to the floor of the tube, as shown at 2 in the figure.

1. _Blossom of scarlet sage as seen from outside._
2. _The same flower with side removed showing the
arrangement of its parts._
3. _A bee working the stamen’s mechanism as she
seeks the nectar._
]

The bee visiting the flower and entering the corolla-tube, pushes her head against the inner arms of the stamens, lifting them, and in so doing causes the anthers on the front arms of the T to lower and leave streaks of pollen along her fuzzy sides. The stigma is at first concealed in the hood; but, when ripe, it projects and hangs down in front of the opening of the corolla-tube, where it may be brushed along one side or the other by the visiting insect, which has been dusted with the pollen of some other flower. The stigma-lobes open in such a manner that they do not catch the pollen from the insect backing out of their own corolla. As the nectar is at the base of the corolla-tube, the bees, in order to get it, crawl in almost out of sight. Late in the season they seem to “go crazy” when gathering this nectar; I have often seen them searching the bases of the corolla-tubes which have fallen to the ground, in order to get what is left of the sweet treasure.

But the pollen story is not all that is of interest in the salvia. Some of the parts of the flower which are green in most blossoms, are scarlet as a cardinal’s robe in this. If we glance at a flower stalk, we see that at its tip it looks like a braided, flattened cone; this appearance is caused by the scarlet, long-pointed bracts, each of which covers, with its bulging base, the scarlet calyx which in turn enfolds the scarlet flower bud. These bracts fall as the flowers are ready to open, making a brilliant carpet about the plant. Each flower stem continues to develop buds at its tip for a long season; and this, taken together with its scarlet bracts and flowers, renders the salvia a thing of beauty in our gardens, and makes it cry aloud to pollen-carriers that here, even in late autumn, there is plenty of nectar.

LESSON CLXII

SALVIA, OR SCARLET SAGE

_Leading thought_--This flower has the bracts and calyx scarlet instead of green, and this makes it a brilliant mass of color to please our eyes and attract the pollen-carrying insects. Its anthers are arranged at the tip of two levers, which the insects push up and down as they enter the flower, thus becoming dusted with pollen.

_Method_--The structure of this flower may be studied in the schoolroom and its mechanism there understood; but the most important part of the lesson is the observation out-of-doors upon the way the bees work the stamen levers when seeking the nectar. This is best observed during late September or October, after other flowers are mostly gone, and when the bees are working with frantic haste to get all the honey possible.

_Observations_--1. How does the calyx of the salvia differ from that of other flowers in color? How does it differ from the corolla in texture? How many lobes has it? How are they placed about the corolla?

2. What is the shape of the corolla? How does it make a hood over the entrance to the tube? What does the hood hold? Is there any platform made by the lower lip of the corolla for a visiting insect to alight upon?

3. Cut open one side of the corolla and describe how the stamens are arranged. Thrust your pencil into an uninjured flower and see if the anthers in the hood are moved by it. How? Describe how a bee in visiting this flower moves the anthers so as to become dusted with pollen.

4. Where is the stigma? How does it receive pollen from visiting insects? Would it be likely to get the pollen which has just been scraped off from its own anthers by the bee? Why?

5. Experiment to find where the nectar is. Do you ever see bees getting the nectar from fallen flowers? Do they get it from the “front” or the “back door?”