CHAPTER LX FRUIT

“IT would be knowing a person very little only to be aware of his wearing a garment of a certain material, a coat of such and such a cloth. One does not know a flower any better when one knows that it is clothed with a calyx and a corolla. What is under this covering?

A flowering branch of the Gillyflower

“Let us examine together this gillyflower. It has a calyx of four sepals and a corolla of four yellow petals. I take away these eight pieces. What is left now is the essential part; that is to say, the thing without which the flower could not fill its r?le and would be perfectly useless. Let us go carefully over this remaining part. You will find it well worth the trouble.

“First, there are six little white rods, each one surmounted by a bag full of yellow powder. These six pieces are called stamens. They are found in all flowers in greater or less number. The gillyflower has six, four longer ones arranged in pairs, and two shorter.

“The double bag that surmounts the stamen is called an anther. The dust contained in the anther is known as pollen. It is yellow in the gillyflower, lily, and most plants; ashy gray in the poppy.”

“You have already told us,” Jules interposed, “how clouds of pollen, raised by the wind in the woods, are the cause of supposed showers of sulphur that frighten people so.”

“I take away the six stamens. There remains a central body, swollen at the bottom, narrow at the top, and surmounted by a kind of head wet with a sticky moisture. In its entirety this central body takes the name of pistil; the swelling at the bottom is called an ovary, and the sticky head that terminates it is a stigma.”

“What big names for such little things!” exclaimed Jules.

“Little, yes; but of unparalleled importance. These little things, my dear friend, give us our daily bread; without the miraculous work of these little things we should die of hunger.”

“I will take care to remember their names, then.”

“I, too,” chimed in Emile; “but you must go over them again, they are so hard to learn.”

Uncle Paul began again. Jules and Emile repeated after him: stamen, anther and pollen; pistil, stigma and ovary.

“With a penknife I divide the flower in two. The split ovary shows us what is inside.”

“I see little seeds in regular rows in two compartments,” observed Jules.

“Do you know what those hardly visible seeds are?”

“Not yet.”

“They are the future seeds of the plant. The ovary, then, is the part of the plant where the seeds form. At a certain time the flower withers; the petals wilt and fall; the calyx does the same, or remains to play the part of protector a while longer; the dried stamens break off; only the ovary remains, growing larger, ripening, and finally becoming the fruit.

“Every fruit—the pear, apple, apricot, peach, walnut, cherry, melon, strawberry, almond, chestnut—began by being a little swelling of the pistil; all these excellent things that the plant furnishes us for food were first ovaries.”

“A pear began by being the ovary of a pear blossom?”

“Yes, my child; pears, apples, cherries, apricots, begin by being the ovaries of their respective flowers. I will show you an apricot in its blossom.”

Uncle Paul took an apricot blossom, opened it with his penknife, and showed the children what is here shown in the picture.

“In the heart of the flower you see the pistil surrounded by numerous stamens. The head that terminates it at the top is the stigma; the swelling at the bottom is the ovary or future apricot.”

“That little green thing would have been an apricot, full of sweet juice, that I like so much?” inquired Emile.

“That little green thing would have become an apricot like those Emile is so fond of. Now would you like to see the ovary that gives us bread?”

“Oh, yes! All these things are very curious,” replied Jules.

“Better than that, very important.”

Claire gave her uncle a needle at his request; then with the delicate patience necessary for this operation he isolated one of the numerous flowers of which the whole forms the ear of wheat. The delicate little flower displayed clearly, on the point of the needle, the different parts composing it.

Wheat

“The blessed plant that gives us bread has not time to think of its toilet. It has such weighty things to attend to: it must feed the world! So you see what quiet clothes it wears! Two poor scales serve it for calyx and corolla. You can easily recognize three hanging stamens with their double sachets for anthers. The principal body of the flower is the tun-bellied ovary, which, when ripe, will be a grain of wheat. It is surmounted by the stigma, fashioned like a double plume of exquisite delicacy. Salute it, my children: behold the modest little flower that gives life to us all!”