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The Parties of the May-Day Fairies: May: Dresses

HOW AND WHY THE FLOWERS TAKE OFF THEIR DRESSES Often the petals fall before withering sets in. In that case something happens that still further reminds us that petals are dying leaves. Little wedges are formed which cut them off from the rest of the flower. Exactly the kind of thing that happens, you remember, to the autumn leaves! It is as if some invisible gardener were in charge of the flower-bearing plant and its children. The petals, having served their purpose, are promptly removed so that they will no longer draw on the plant's food-supply. Moreover, by falling, they help feed either the parent plant or some other, by enriching the soil, just as leaves do. The petals of a single flower don't enrich the soil very much, to be sure. Neither does a single leaf. But thousands and millions and trillions of leaves do. So with the petals. Only by thinking in that way of such little things going on all around us can we begin to comprehend the wonderful system of Nature. Among other things she seems to have known the great principles of modern business long before modern business ever appeared on the scene. One of these principles is that "it is the small economies that make the large dividends." And we have the same thing in another form in the good old maxim--isn't it one of Franklin's?--"save the pennies and the dollars will take care of themselves." UNFURLED THEIR BANNERS, ON LANDING, AS COLUMBUS DID We all know that picture in our school histories showing Columbus planting his banner on landing in the new world. It was something the same way, it seems, with the plants and their flowers. Plant life, like animal life, originated in the water. The early water-plants, few in species and simple in form as they were, nevertheless became the ancestors of the great varieties of grasses, herbs, and trees that now grow on land; and, with the landing, came the flowers, the unfurling of the bright banners.

PLAINER DRESSES IN PIONEER DAYS Flowers are such delicate things that the records of the rocks with regard to their origin is much more scanty than in the case of animal life. But, among other things, they show the interesting fact that, as among human beings, the dresses of flowers were much plainer in pioneer days. The flowers without perfume or color, like those of the Pines, preceded the flowers with the pretty colors and the perfume.

And thereby hangs a tale as strange as any fairy-story, the story of how the flowers entertain the bees and others in return for the use of their flying-machines in going and coming between one pollen-party and another, as described in the next section. With the pretty dress fabrics came in, not only a wide variety of color patterns, but more styles than can be seen at a fancy-dress ball. Nowadays the great majority of the members of the plant world, from the little wood-violets up to the great Tulip Tree, wear pretty dresses. Although most forest-trees get along without the help of the bees and their associates, and therefore go to no expense in the matter of coloring or perfume for their flowers, yet it is thought that perhaps the first step in the process of making colored flowers was taken by the trees; was the production of the red coloring matter we have already spoken of by some members of the Pine family. You can see a suggestion of this in the brilliant red female cones of the Fir and the Larch known as "Larch roses." II. HOW AND WHY THE FLOWER FAIRIES GO TO PARTIES As we have said, the flowers that wear pretty dresses or use perfumes don't do it for themselves alone but to please invited guests. Many flowers, for the same purpose, always have on hand during the social season a supply of cookies; others, little jars of honey. Some keep open house, in the matter of the honey-jars, leaving them out where any passer-by can help himself; while others put them in certain rooms to which only particular friends have the key. Some flowers, the poppies, for example, dress in very pretty taste but use no perfume; while others, the roses for example, have both pretty dresses and perfume. Neither of these flowers have any sweets to offer their guests, but both keep on hand an abundance of pollen which the bees take home and stow away in their tiny wax jars in the pantry, so that not only the queen but the rest of the bee folks of their hive can sit in the parlor and have their bread and honey, just as the queen did in Mother Goose; for what the bees call "bee-bread" is really bread and honey, a mixture of the pollen with the honey which the bees make from the nectar of the flowers.

HERE ARE THE SWEETS! HELP YOURSELF!

Among the plant people that "keep open house" are those magnificent trees, the Lindens. Their flowers are small and not at all showy but they have a lovely perfume, are wide open and have an abundance of nectar. In the flowering season they simply swarm with bees.

In the case of the Willows the nectar is partly concealed in the short, tube-like corolla, by hairs or scales which act like little locks to keep out certain uninvited guests but can be opened by the bees who carry "keys"; that is to say, the bees have tongues that reach to the bottom of the tubes. But why should flowers be so particular as to what visitors they entertain? It's because the bees and some other little people, such as butterflies and moths, have flying-machines and, by dressing up for these visitors and serving dainty meats and drinks -- pollen and nectar -- the pollen fairies can ride away on these machines and meet other fairies in other flowers; for the dressed-up flowers haven't any flying-machines of their own as have the pollen-grains of the Pines and the Oaks and others.

In order to produce the best seed, and in the cases of some members of the plant world in order to produce any seeds at all, the pollen-grains must be carried from the stamens on which they are born to the pistil of a flower of the same species. Well, this looks easy enough when, as in so many instances, the pistils and stamens are in the very same flower, side by side. But that's just it -- it's too easy! Mother Nature wants our flower fairy folks to go and get acquainted with little strangers of their own kind; so she usually sees to it that they just do!

THE GREAT ADVANTAGE OF SOCIAL LIFE IN FLOWERLAND You know if we stuck at home all the time and never got acquainted with other people, life would not only be dull but we'd be dull. And so it is, in a manner of speaking, with the people of the plant world, the tree peoples and all their relations of the woods and fields. This crossbreeding between flowers on different plants not only results in better seed and more hardy offspring, but creates new varieties. And as both these things, new varieties and vigorous growths, are evidently considered so important in the scheme of things, Nature, as a rule, takes precautions actually to compel the pistil of one plant to get the pollen necessary to awaken the little germ in its egg-case from some other plant.

In some kinds of flowers the pistil will absolutely refuse to open the door, as it were, should the pollen-grains from one of its own stamens come knocking; or, in plain English, will not produce seed when sprinkled with this home-grown pollen. In some flowers the stamens ripen before the pistil, in others the pistil ripens before the stamens. In either case, in order for fertilization to take place, the pollen must come from some other plant whose stamens have ripened earlier. Then, later, its own stamens, ripening, will have their pollen carried, by winged insects or the winds, to the pistils of other plants of the same species that have just ripened. Of course everybody knows that among trees and other plants of the very same species and in the same locality, the flowers don't all come out at once, but who would have thought that any of them meant to do this on purpose? Another of Nature's precautions against "self-fertilization," i.e., the production of seed by a plant from its own pollen, is to grow one kind of flower having a pistil but no stamens and another with stamens but no pistil. In the Willows this thing is carried so far that the two kinds of flowers are on separate trees! In the flowers of the Catalpa, where each flower has its own stamens and its own pistil, the lobes of the stigma, the part of the pistil that catches and holds the pollen-grains, remain resolutely closed until after the stamens have ripened and their pollen has all been carried away by the bees.

THE GOLDEN FAIRY'S MAGIC TOUCH But what takes place after the pollen comes to the pistil, as a result of the magic touch of those yellow pollen-grains, is the most wonderful thing of all; for it is in this way that every tree or flowering plant reproduces itself, after its kind. Very soon after the pollen-grain has fallen on the pistil, there grows from it a little tube which reaches down through the stem of the pistil (called the "style") into the egg-case (called the "ovary") at the bottom, where it unites with the egg-cell or germ, and together they form the seed which is to reproduce the plant.

In the Pine-cones the scales turn back and expose the inner surface at the time when the air is filled with the pollen from other Pines, which is thus able to act on the naked seed germs. Then the scales close up again and remain closed until the seeds ripen. Then they open again and let the seeds sail away on the winds to seek their fortunes in the great world of the forest. WHY FLOWERS TALK GREEK AND LATIN Among the advantages of scientific names for such important things as the parts of a flower are: (a) you know exactly what is meant; (b) one word saves nine--or more; (c) the scientific name is easy to remember when you get, from the dictionary, its original meaning; particularly when, as is so often the case, it is a "picture word."

Calyx (Greek for "husk"): The green "husk" of the flower. Corolla (Latin for "garland"): What could better describe this crown of the "May queens," which all their petals together form?

Stamens (G. "thread"): The slender stems with the Anthers (G. "bloom") on the end, containing the Pollen (G. "dust").

Pistil: From L. for "pestle," the shape of which it resembles. Enlarged part, the Ovary (L. "egg"), contains the germ or "egg" to be fertilized by the pollen. The slender "handle" of the pistil is the Style (L. "stylus," the slender instrument the Romans used as a pen).

Stigma (G. "spot"): Not much of a picture-word, perhaps; but reflect that it is on this identical spot, and no other, that the pollen must fall. Remember, also, that it is usually moist or sticky, to hold the pollen; "stickma" is so close to the right word that you can hardly miss it! HOW THE HICKORY-NUTS PUT ON THEIR JACKETS There's simply no end to the interesting things to be learned about the flowering and seed-making business of the trees and their smaller relations of the plant world. So, of course, I couldn't attempt to tell them all here, but there's one I must speak of, even if we are nearly at the end of our chapter, and that is how the Hickory-Nuts put on their jackets, because we are all so interested in Hickory-Nuts in the autumn; and because it illustrates so well Nature's many thrifty ways in carrying on her own National Forest Service. Instead of going to the trouble and expense of getting new material to make the seed coat, the shell of the nut, she takes the inside of the germ case and turns it into the seed coat, right where it is!