rls, for their secrets were not real
ones, they were just made up and they did not amount to very much
after all, but this was a real one, kept up in earnest with the bees
and flowers. And now she was to be let into it! Mrs. Edson bent over
the bright yellow blossom, taking it gently in her fingers to prevent
it from nodding so briskly in the breeze that they should be unable to
examine it closely.

"You see, dear," she said, pointing with a twig to the different parts
as she named them, "right here, in the exact center of the blossom, is
a bunch of green growing in the form of an oval, shaped somewhat like
an egg with the smaller end upward."

"Yes, oh, yes!" Elsie answered eagerly. "What is it, mamma?"

"Broadly speaking we will call it the ovary. I am not going to confuse
you by giving you too many hard words at first, words like corolla,
carpel, style, stigma, and the like. I shall name only two parts of
the flower for you to remember just now, because only two are really
necessary to be named at this point. So the name of this one
is--what?"

"Ovary!" answered Elsie quickly.

"Yes, ovary! It is called so because it contains ovules, which are
tiny seeds or eggs. That is the mother part of the plant."

"The mother!" Elsie queried. "Why, mamma, is there a father too?"

"Yes, dearie, many plants have both a mother and a father part, which
grow near together in the same flower, while other plants have only a
father part, and still others have only a mother part. This buttercup
has both, has both the male and the female principle. The ovary is the
female, and here, above it and surrounding it, you see a number of
taller spires, yellow in color and each of them bearing a tiny
enlargement, a kind of knob, at the top."

"Yes, yes, but that--that can't be the papa part! Is it, mamma?" she
cried, examining the rather insignificant appearing spires dubiously.
"They don't look much like a--a papa!" she said in some
disappointment. Her mother laughed.

"They certainly do not look much like a man-papa," she returned, "but
they form the papa part of the plant, nevertheless, and are truly the
papas of the baby buttercups. And their name is the second one that I
wish you to remember from now on. It is stamen."

"Stamen!" said Elsie.

"Yes, each of these stems is called a stamen, and they form the male
part of the plant, the father part. Many plants, those of the simpler
kinds, have only one stamen and it grows in the f