he flowers might as well never have
blossomed. Very different will be the result in the flowers of pot No.
3. These received the pollen on the stigma, and in some way this pollen
affected the ovules so that they began to develop. We say the flower was
fertilized by the pollen, and "fertilized" is a valuable word to learn
at once. When the petals of the fertilized flowers fall, all does not
fall. There remains the ovary with the long style and the star-like
stigma. The ovary continues to grow, as do the seeds within it. Since
the geranium is a house-plant, raised under unnatural conditions, not
all the fertilized flowers will succeed. Some may fall at once, like the
unfertilized ones. But out of the whole bunch of fertilized flowers some
will be almost sure to start the development enough to show that in some
way the fertilized flowers were able to produce seeds, while the others
will in no case make any attempt at seed-forming. Even though none of
the seeds come to perfection, the fact that they start at all will
demonstrate the effect of the pollen. The geranium is a good plant to
use in illustrating this point, because it is so constructed that it
cannot fertilize its own flowers.

What the child thus far learns is simply that the pollen is in some way
necessary to the development of the ovule. If the experiment with the
geraniums is not practicable, the child can be told that the pollen is
necessary to the development of the seed, that it falls upon the stigma
and nourishes the little ovules down in the ovary, and that no seed can
form without the aid of the pollen. All the seeds we plant in the flower
gardens or in the vegetable gardens, and all the grain we sow in the
fields, are produced by the help of pollen. All the peas and beans and
other seeds we eat owe their existence in part to the pollen, and
without it they could not develop.

Some parents teach their children at once that the pistil is the
mother-part of the plant, caring for the young seeds, the stamens the
father part, providing for them, and that the stamens and pistil
growing in the same flower are brothers and sisters. Other parents
prefer to use only botanical terms, leaving the extension of the thought
to later consideration or to the child's own logic, for children often
reason out all the facts--in a very general way, of course--from only
this botanical study.

But we are not yet done with the pollen. It not only assists the ovule
to develop