Working, tho illustrious,
Until your seeds new fields have won‚
Would I were industrious.
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| Iris blooming in the wild. |
Take an Iris blossom. Just look at it a while before you think of its parts. How rich its coloring is. See how it shines as if some diamond dust was worked into its material. How graceful is its form. You see the flower does not grow in straight and narrow lines as its leaves do. It copies the curves of the Iris in the sky, just as it copies her lovely colors.
Now look at Iris closely. You count nine bright parts. Each looks like a petal. There is no sign of a green calyx such as Baby-Blue-Eyes wears all her life and Poppy pushes off when she greets the sun. There does not seem to be any stamens. There does not seem to be any pistil.
Why, what an odd flower Iris is! She has caught the curves and the colors of the rainbow and has brought them down to earth. Have they given her some magic power? We've been told that there is a "pot of fairy gold" hidden in the ground at the rainbow's end. Can it be that Iris has a fairy wand? Can she just wave about and form her seeds with petals alone? A glance at the lovely flower makes you ready to believe that that is true. Nothing but petals in sight.
However, you children know by this time that petals can not make seeds. No matter how beautiful they are, their work is not the real seed-making. You know it takes stamens and pistils to make seeds. You have seen that Iris does make a strong seed-case, so now look carefully at her parts.
I must tell you that sometimes a calyx is not green. If a flower loves other colors, it sometimes dyes its calyx different. But the calyx is always the outside ring of the flower parts.
Those three large parts of the Iris form the outside ring. They are the sepals. They are the most beautifully colored. They curve back gracefully. They have lovely gold and purple lines on them.
The next three parts are the petals. They are the ones that stand up straight inside the calyx and then curve inward toward the center. You see they are not so beautifully marked as are the sepals. They do not need to be, as the sepals do their work.
The three inner parts that curve first outward and then toward the center are the three stigmas of the pistil. Just compare them with the two little round black stigmas that Baby-Blue-Eyes carries. They are so much more beautiful that we mistook them for petals. See how each stigma divides into two parts at the top, just before it takes the inward curve.
Look at the outside of the stigma. Just below where it divides you see a little light-colored shelf.
When you have found that shelf, you have found the stamen.
My! You give a sigh of relief, don't you? It did seem that the stamens were missing. You expected to find them standing up just inside the corolla. You see they are really in a ring outside the pistil. They are joined to the bottom of the sepals. The stigma curves over like a nice roof, so that the stamen just curves itself along the stigma's back. The anther is turned to the outside so that it can throw the pollen outward.
The sepal has all those happy paths to lead down to the little dishes of honey at its base. You can see how the honey is kept safe from the rain.
Mrs. Big Ant lands on a sepal. She knows that these paths must lead to a fine party. She rushes down the nearest one. As she passes the shelf of the stigma, she knocks against it. If she is visiting Iris for the first time, nothing happens there.
When she reaches the honey bowl, its contents are so good that she forgets her table manners. She grabs hold of the dish and fairly gobbles down the contents. My, Mrs. Big Ant! That is a rude way to eat.
But in eating so rudely, she helps Iris. She shakes the stamen that rises up from the sepal on which she is standing. Pop! The anther opens at each side and lets fall a shower of light colored pollen.. The anther is so large that-you can open one yourself, if you wish to see how it works. Try tickling a stiff blade of grass.
When Mrs. Big Ant enters the next Iris, she is not in quite such a rush. She strolls along a honey path. But her head and her back knocks against the shelf of the stigma and now she has something to leave on it. That sticky underside of the stigma's shelf brushes up the dust off Big Ant's body quicker than you can wink an eye. Then, the stigma sends the pollen down to the seed-case where the ovules are waiting to be made into seeds. If you take a flower to pieces carefully, you will see that the stigmas rise up from the seedcase below.
Mrs. Big Ant is not interested in the pollen or seed-making. She shakes herself free from the sticky stigma and goes down to the dish of honey. Hopefully she eats now with greater care. She cannot be so hungry as when she entered the first Iris. No matter how gently she sips, she is sure to shake the stamen. Then she will receive the shower of pollen and carry it to the next Iris.
You can see that a small insect can pass in between the sepals and dine without ever touching a stamen. That is why Iris makes so much pollen. She can feed many guests. If some are mere robbers and will take their food without paying for it, it does not worry her. She just keeps on being beautiful and generous. In time, some large honest bugs are sure to come along, and she is well repaid for setting the delicate table.
Iris can make seeds if the insects do not help her.
Iris does not bloom as long as does Buttercup. As soon as her stigma has received pollen, she curls up her beautiful parts. Then all her strength goes to her seed-case and its contents.
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