BEE-spoke-data/bees-v0 huggingface dataset:
The stamens are the masculine reproductive organs, and, like the pistil, different portions of it receive different terms--the anthers (5) and filaments (6). The filaments are thread-like appendages, and are generally attached to the base of the corolla, and not to the ovary, as in the case of the style; neither is it tubular. Their office is to support the anthers, and to keep them in their proper position. The anthers, generally two in number, are situated at the summit of each filament. They are of different forms, according to the class of fruit borne by the tree--round, angular, elongated, or sometimes twisted. When the blossion first opens, the anther is usually of a bright colour, generally yellow. Its supper surface is a flat, smooth disc. As the day advances, and the anther matures, each one opens with a longitudinal slit its entire length. It can then be seen that each anther is a pocket or sack filled with pollen--a very fine dust-like flour. Pollen is of a variety of colours--white, red, pea-green, &c., are of frequent occurrence--but the predominating colour is some shade of orange. By watching at the entrance of a bee-hive, different bees will be seen to enter with pollen of various shades, although they prefer to work on those blooms that are yielding the greatest quantity. By taking a piece of honeycomb containing bee-bread, and cutting a cell filled with it longitudinally, strata of various colours are always to be seen. In flowers that are fertilised by insects, the pollen is usually of a sticky nature. This property is availed of by the bees. By this they knead it into small pellets, and neatly pack it in the pollen baskets on their hinder legs. The pollen of pumpkins and other members of that family, on account of its non-adhesive quality, they cannot so treat, but carry home in the hairs of their bodies. The pollen of blossoms fertilised by the wind is also non-adhesive. Pollen grains are of various forms, according to the class of plant it is taken from.
The essential organs of a flower are somewhat akin to one another, and a cursory glance by a casual observer is more than likely to regard the stigma and auther as similar organs and of equal value in the economy of plant-life. Well, in one sense, they are, just as the sexes in animal life are dependent on one another for the continuance of the species of variety. The dissimilarity in the essential organs in a flower is very marked, and their functions wholly distinct. The anthers are the pollen bearers, and the stigma is the receiver. It is highly important that the distinctions should be studied by all engaged in plant culture; and now, as agriculture and horticulture is so spread over the schools curriculum, the attention of all should be drawn to it.
The controls in many entomophilus plants, _i.e._, plants polinised by insects, is frequently of an attractive colour, although some are very inconspicuous in that respect. Its office is, while the flower is in bud, protective, guarding the developing essential organs from injury--acting as a blanket. The corolla is composed of petals; these are frequently detached the one from the other; sounetimes they are united at the base, the tips only remaining free.
The calyx is the outer protective envelope. If the corolla acts as a blanket, then the calyx is the macintosh. Like the corolla, it is frequently formed of more than one part. Each separate portion is termed a sepal. It is generally, green, but not always.
The beneficial influence of bees on certain crops, and the imperative necessity for their location within a near radius of fruit-trees, demands more than the usual passing glance. The nearer the home of the bee is to the orchard or fruit garden, the more frequently can they visit the blossoming fruit-trees. The earlier in the morning the bees visit a fruit-tree when in bloom the more certain will be the act of pollenisation and the resultant fertilisation the more effectual. Bees have been seen on their foraging ground beyond the radius of 3 miles, but these long journeys must be undertaken at the expense of the number of trips made during the day.
Blossoms open at various hours both in the day-time and in the night--the majority in the early morning just after sunrise,
some at noon, others in the twilight, and a few species after dark. Some species of flowers are very sensitive to light and darkness, and will only open when the sun shines brightly. Those that open in the earlier portion of the day generally close towards sandown and re-open the following morning, especially if they have not been visited by an insect; those that open at twilight or after dark close at dawn. The blossoms of fruit-trees generally remain open the whole day. During a heavy flow of honey, bees will work for some time after sunset and well on towards darkness. On warm, calm evenings I have more than once seen bees returning home by the light of the moon, when the latter has been shining brightly. Of course, diurnal flowers are visited by diurnal insects. Flowers that open in the twilight or after are visited chiefly by moths.
Anemophilus flowers (those that are fertilised by the wind) do not close after they have once opened. The anthers being attached to the filament so tenderly, the slightest movement caused by a passing breeze is sufficient to shake the pollen to the stigma. It is the soft, gentle breeze that is efficacious in the fertilisation of cereal crops--wind just sufficiently strong to carry the pollen a few feet from the auther that produced it. At the time wheat and other cereal crops are in flower, when the pollen is mature and hanging loosely in the anthers, heavy wind storms are as destructive as lave frosts. Many a crop that has appeared promising enough when in blade, has failed to give a heavy yield, owing to strong winds catching up the pollen and wafting it away into the bush, or elsewhere, where its influence is lost.
The arrangement of the reproductive organs in blossoms vary very considerably in different classes of plant life, and the most casual observer must have noticed the many forms of insect life. Those insects that subsist on the honey they extract from flowers are, in many instances, so constructed as to appear to _fit_ the flowers they visit. Again, the construction of certain flowers is only adaptable to the wants of certain insects. The nectery is so situated in different classes of flowers that the honey it contains can only be obtained by the insect _designed_ to fertilise them. The length of tongue in moths, butterflies, and bees is well-known, and its length plays no inconsiderable part in perpetuating varieties and species of the vegetable kingdom. In Darwin's work, "'Fertilisation of Orchids''-a book everyone interested in the subject should read--he mentions cne flower as having a spur-like form, from 10 to 11 inches long, with the nectery situated at its base, and for the purpose of obtaining the honey contained therein there must be an insect with a tongue of an equal length. It appears that this particular orch is a native of Madagascar. Some orchid hunters, in searching that island for specimens, came across a moth with a tongue of corresponding length--evidently the agent employed by Nature to fertilise this particular plant. Some plants are only met with in particular localities; in other localities, having the same conditions of soil, warm, moisture, etc.,they are entirely absent. Again, in localities where some species of plants are found, certain species of insects are also to be met with, and _riee versa_. Thus, particular plants are dependent on certain insects, and particular insects on certain plants, for the propagation of their species.
The pollen-bearing organs are not always to be met with in the same flower. In the melon, cucumber, and other plants belonging to that tribe, some of the flowers are male--\(i.e.\), possess stamens only, or have no pistil; while others are female--\(i.e.\), possess a pistil but no stamens. The pollen of this tribe of plants is comparatively heavy and viscid. It is therefore obvious, as the two sexual flowers are situated at some distance the one from the other, a foreign agent must convey the pollen from the stamen to the stigma of the pistil of the female flower. In some of the Egyptian palm-trees there are what are termed male and female trees--\(i.e.\), the sexual flowers are on separate and distinct trees. The trees are often at considerable distances the one from the other, and the pollen can only be transported by insects. The variegated laurel (_Aureurel jaurelica_) is another of these diecious sarubs, and of course, like the palm-trees referred to, the male and female flowers are on different trees. It was introduced into England many years ago by the Dutch from Japan. It so happened that the plants first introduced were female plants, or in other words bore female flowers only. There were no pollen-bearing flowers, consequently no seed could be produced, and propagation was carried on by cuttings only. Some years afterwards a MF: Fortune introduced some male plants. These were planted in close proximity to some of the old Dutch ones that had been perpetuated by means of cuttings. The result was that an abundance of fertile seed was produced the following season.
The pollen of the variegated laurel was an article of commerce in the London Convent Garden market.
The length of time the pollen of some of the palms and laurels retain their vitality is remarkable. The pollen in other varieties of plants must be utilised soon after it is discharged from the auther or its procerative property is lost.
The quantity of pollen grains discharged from flowers is something enormous, especially in those plants where the sexual flowers are on different trees. The flowers on a Chinese laburnum (_Wiistaria chiensis_) were calculated to contain no less than twenty-seven billions of pollen grains.
From these illustrations it will be noted the utter impossibility for certain plants to be perpetuated from seeds, or to produce fruit, without aid from an agent outside themselves. Here the bee comes in to play its important part in our fruit-crops.
What I have said in relation to the distribution of the sexual flowers in the variegated laurel, palms, &c., is equally true and holds good in the blossoms of our orchard fruits, with this exception--that they have not separate sexual flowers, but the sexual organs are in one and the same flower. Notwithstanding this, the stannens mature, and the pollen is distributed some time (in some cases days) before the pistil, or rather the stigma, is sufficiently developed to receive it. Thus, while the male organs of some of the flowers have perfected, maturition in others is still progressing, and so with the pistil; so that the fertilisation of the fruit blossom by its own pollen is as impossible as if the reproductive organs were on different plants, or at least on different flowers on the same tree; therefore a foreign agent is as essential to transport the pollen from hermaphrodite flowers as from that of diocious. The oft-quoted aphorism, ''Nature abhors a vacuum,'' was reconstructed by Darwin into ''Nature abhors perpetual self-fertilisation''; and the various ways Nature has arranged the pollen-bearing organs is Nature's safeguard against what is termed in-and-in reproduction, and cross-pollenation ensured. Cross-pollenation has long been recognised in the economy of the reproduction of members of the vegetable kingdom. It was known as far back as the time of Herodotus. Ile describes the process of the transference (caprification) of the pollen from the male tree to that of the female, by which means a crop of dates was ensured on the Egyptian palms.
Some early-blossoming trees seem to burst forth suddenly, especially pears. In looking through a truss or a bunch of pear blossoms on the same stem that have just opened, it will be noted that the parts perfected are the calyx, the corolla, and the stamen. The pistils are still undeveloped. After the anthers have discharged their pollen, the ripening of the pistils commences; and by the time the stigma is receptive, there is no pollen from the first opening blooms wherewith these early-maturing blossoms can be fertilised. It is obvious that the all-important pollen must be obtained from some other flowers, or there will be a failure in the crops of the tree that has so blossomed. I shall point out further on that the pollen from any source, if the bees were to convey it, will be as great a failure as if the stigma were entirely deprived of that fertilising influence. Seeds must me fertilised by pollen from their own species. A newspaper clipping--I think from a Brisbane paper that I have now in my possession--says : ''If one were to plant 20 acres with Stone Pippin apples, or with Cleopatras, or with Duchess pears, and no other kind of apples or pears within a half-mile, it is not at all likely that there would be any fruit. _(If there were trees within the radius of half or mile, the experiment would not be a failure; if yes were neither too or three miles they would carry the pollen, but the crop would be light.)_ It is necessary to have a few of some other variety of apple or pear, which bears blossoms at the same, _or about the same time_, and then they will pollinate each other, so that both varieties will bear fruit. Bartlett pears are fertilised by Duchess d'Augoulene, Easter Beurre, Beurre d'Anjou, and by others. The thing required is to have the flowers of each variety mature at _nearly_ the same time. There is at least one instance in this State where a large block of apples of one kind has been planted for many years, and has never borne any fruit, although the trees are very strong and healthy, and bear perfect flowers every year. The pollen is ripe before the pistils are ready to receive it, and by the time the pistils are mature the pollen is all gone.'' The _italies_ in this quotation are mine. I once read in an American paper a similar failure in connection with cherry orchards, where the bees had all been removed because they were accredited with eating holes in the ripe fruit, and thus reducing their market value. After the removal of the bees from the district the trees gave no, or at the most but a slight, crop of fruit. After about three years, the bees were returned to that district, and the trees went on bearing as heretofore. With ignorant men, the poor little bees get the credit of a host of evils they never do. If all orchards knew the value of bees, apart from that of honey producing, no orchard would be seen without then.
Every grain of seed requires a grain of pollen to fertilise it. By removing the husks from a corn-cob whilst in a green state, a fine silken thread will be seen attached to each maturing grain. It is the organ of reception, and it is absolutely imperative for a grain of the dust from the anther (the flower on the top of the corn-stalk) to fall or be conveyed to the point (sigma) of each silken thread. In a mature cob of corn, misses in the rows of grain are often observable. This is caused by the pistil not having received its necessary grain of pollen; and caused either by an injury to its stigma or an insufficiency of pollen. Deformed fruitsare of common occurrence, more especially with apples and pears. This is caused by imperfect polenisation. It is clearly observable in the accompanying diagram : a section of an apple showing the five sections of the ovary, with four of the ovules of seeds, marked \(f\), perfectly fertilised, and on the sides of the fruit, where the seeds are so fertilised, it is perfect in form. The unfertilised seed in the ovary, marked \(u\), has caused the deformation in the fruit. If, in four out of the five sections seen in the ovary of apples and pears, the seeds therein are perfectly fertilised, the fruit is likely to develop, although it will be a deformity ; but if only three be so fertilised the fruit seldom comes to perfection. The light seeds, those without kernels, that are frequently met with in pump-kins and other members of that family, are caused in a similar way--_i.e.,_ by the bees being prevented by some cause from supplying a sufficiency of pollen to do the whole work necessary in reproduction.
The matrimonial ceremonies -- how they marry and are given in marriage--is the portion of the subject I here wish to deal with. The arrangements of the sexual reproductive organs and their various functions have already been dealt with.
There is nothing more interesting in the life-history of the vegetable kingdom than the methods and agencies of its reproduction. Fascinating as it is, it is too often the stumbling-block of amateurs, whose love of plant-life carries them to look into the deeply-hidden mysteries of this absorbing subject. The sexuality known to exist in blossoms, their matrimonial instincts, their marriage ceremonies, their domestic ties, their methods of raising and perpetuating their families and co-relations, the offciating and conjugating priests, and the agreement between the contracting parties, are all more or less like fairy tales than actual facts.
Let us enter into one of the temples of Nature and have a look at the matrimonial instincts of plant life. How their ceremonies are conducted ; how species and families of plants live and perpetuate; who are the conjugating and officiating priests, and how the contracting parties faithfully carry out their marriage vow of for better or for worse, only when Nature performs these coronomies it is all better and no worse; especially is it so when man has taken in hand the higher development of certain varieties of plant life to be more adapted to his wants and needs.
In the higher members of the plant-world there is a very great difference between pollen cells and the ovules (little eggs) that are joined to form new individuals. The former of these is smaller than the latter, and more active--it is the male; and the latter, of course, is larger than the former, is composed of richer matter, and is passive--it is the female. From the nature of these ovules, these passive eggs, they cannot become seed or plants until they are united with and fertilised by an active or live pollen grain. The essential organs in blossoms known as anthers contain these active cells, the cells of life. The pistillate organs contain the passive cells, the cells of matter. The pistil in apples, pears, or other fruit blossoms is the bride, the stamens seen in blooms of like trees are the bridegrooms, and the honey-bee is the licensed officiating priest who is to perform the connubial ceremony. Let us for a while watch these officials of Nature carry out some of their highly important duties. Bearing in mind, whilst so watching, the table of kindred and affinity wherein it is stated a man may not marry his grandmother or a woman her grandfather, etc., and note how these insects, without a written law, are never parties to close or blood relations intermarrying; neither does their natural instinct permit them to perform unnatural alliances. They will not attempt to marry an orange to an apple, or a pea with a pump-kin, or a pear with a cherry, and so on; neither does Nature permit them to marry the male of a blossom with a female of the same bloom. Such alliances in the higher plants are repugnant to all concerned. Nature's motto in the vegetable kingdom, as well as in the animal, is, especially when aided by the intelligent hand of man, ''upward and onward.'' If the pollen of a blossom were transmitted to the carpels of the same, the result would be degradation, and the loss of some of the choicest varieties of fruit and vegetables we now raise from seed.
The ovary is composed of one or more carpels. The ovary of an apple bloom has five such carpels. In the mature fruit these are termed the core.
In the early spring mornings, when the bees issue forth to go in quest of stores, the first thing they gather is pollen. It is the first product the blossom yields, even before it secretes its nectar (honey). In their eagerness to be first on the foraging ground, they leave home at about sunrise. If they have selected an orange to gather their stores from, they will keep upon orange or some other member of the citrus tribe during the whole of that peregrination. Tumbling about in the cup of the flower amongst the anthers, they gather up in their fur numberless grains of these life cells, pollen grains. Head, thorax, abdomen are all more or less dusted with it. Whilst gathering it, and whilst on the wing from flower to flower, and tree to tree, they are busily engaged in packing it in the pollen baskets that are situated in the upper part of the hinder legs. As the day warns, the blossoms unfurl ; the central whorls develop, and the stigma becomes receptive.
The bee, eager in her duties to supply her home with abundance of food, both for the young brood and winter storage, commences her search for honey. In the early morning there is little or no nectar secreted ; but as the warmth increases so the flow of honey advances. Anxius to fill her honey-sac whilst gathering the pollen she enters the blossoms where she will find the greatest abundance of her favourite winter storage, and thrusts her tongue down into the nectaries of the blooms. To get at the honey more readily she lies on the top of the essential organs, and brushes to and fro on the stigma. Whilst thus engaged, the fur on the various parts of her body retains pollen grain ; those on her breast come in contact with the stigmas of the flowers. Having commenced working on an orange for pollen she will not go to an apple or aught else for her honey. Citrus fruits supplied the pollen, citrus fruits must provide the honey. Why? Because Nature has endowed the bee with that intelligence--there is no other word so applicable--to know if she were to take the pollen of an orange to the stigma of an apple, as far as fructification was concerned, her labour would be useless. Pollen from one species of the vegetable kingdom can seldom be used successfully, even by artificial means, to fertilise that of another species. When it is successful the result is a hybrid, the descendants of which cannot be perpetuated by seed, but only by cuttings, graftings, &c. Bearing in mind the characteristics of the stigma, its adhesiveness, and its hairy hook lets, the bee's breast, coming in contact with the latter, it acts as a comb or brush, and aids in detaching the pollen grains from the fur of the bee. These'grains fall on the adhesive stigma, and are retained by its viscidity. When this contact takes place--sometimes at once, at other times it may be delayed for hours--the cell of life starts into activity by throwing out a pollen tube, which at once goes in search of the cell of matter contained in the passive ovule. To accomplish this the pollen-tube makes its way down the style which connects the stigma to the ovary. The silky threads that protrude from a cob of corn, delicate as they are, are not too fine or too long for these active tubes to penetrate. The style of the orange, etc., is also easily pierced. The ovule, or young seed in the ovary, contains the embryo of the future plant. The pollen-tube having found its way to the ovule, the union of the respective cells takes place. The ovule thus receiving the ''germ of life,'' the infantile development of the future orange or other tree, as the case may be, commenoes.
When the contact of the two cells has been accomplished, the calyx witness; the corolla, with the dead remains of the stamens adhering thereto, falls to the ground; and the pistil in most cases is absorbed in the fruit.
These developments will be better understood by reference to a peach or other stone fruit. When the ovule has thus been fertilised, the seed, or, as it is generally termed, the kernel, is the first to develop, followed by that of the hard shell surrounding it, the stone. At first both kernel and the shell of the stone are in embryo; as they advance in age the shell hardens, and, at the same time the flesh increases and matures with the gradual expansion of the outer skin. We then say it is ripe, _i.e._, its flesh has become useful as food to man, and the seed capable of reproducing its species.