Page:Growing Up (1928).djvu/41

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Chapter III
Pollen and Sperm

Before an egg can become an animal or a plant it must be helped to start growing. It cannot start by itself.

The little eggs in the ovaries of the flowers would wither and die if something that we call pollen did not join them and help them to become seeds.

Pollen is the yellow powder that you sometimes find on the tip of your nose after you have tried to smell a snapdragon or a dandelion or a lily. Nearly every flower has pollen.

The next time you see an Easter lily look at it carefully and you will notice, growing out of the middle of the flower, a tall thread or stem. This stem leads to the ovary of the lily. It is called the pistil. Growing up around the pistil but not quite so tall as it is are six threads or