Show rudimentary FLOWERS 1 I 1 Interest lair facts fact Concer concerning alair tho the cycz cyc punts these plants possess a special interest inasmuch as they present us with what is one of the earliest and most rudimentary kind of flower like au all the lower kinds of flowering plants they bear two sorts the so called male aal an female flowers now when one of these flowers are examined says lon longmans 9 magazine one might well feel suri surprised if unprepared for what pre BO kinds are i aaa atie W expected exPect el 1 of the e simplest lorm the male flower consisting merely of sta mens bearing pollen sacs when one of these stamens is inspected it is se en to be but an ordinary leaf modified nay more the pollen sacs born on the back surface like the fern seed on the fern leaf are obviously but the little spore cases of the cryptogams cryptograms crypto gams yet further we open one of them and the pollen grains themselves proves to be but the little spores of the lower plants the whole flower is in fact nothing but the modified spore bearing leaf of the higher cryptograms grams the female flowers on close examination prove similarly to be but spore bearing leaves also modified though va in a different direction what then has happened very little in point of fact though much in point of significance the spore which produced the little plant requiring fertilization which latter we observed growing smaller and smaller simply now no longer falls off but remains attached to the parent leaf and awaits the pollen that is carried to it by the wind all that previously took place in the marsh below now takes place in situ in the production of the seed that is the whole plan in brief the great end which nature accomplished when she evolved the first firs t flowers was simply to enable cross fer utilization to take place without the aid of water this was the feat which revolutionized the vegetable world the flowering plants were at last and henceforth independent of aquatic conditions dit ions they took full possession of the land and the other forms dependent on water for fertilization began slowly but surely Burely to give way before them |