If we examine a blossom bud just before it opens we will see only the calyx.  Everything else will be wrapped up inside of it.  Evidently, then, the calyx is a protecting covering for the other parts of the flower until blossoming time.

The corolla will be found carefully folded within the calyx and also helps protect the stamens and pistil.

Some flowers do not produce bright-colored corollas to attract the bees, for examples, the flowers of the grasses, wheat, corn, and other grains, the willows, butternuts, elms, pines and others.  But they produce large amounts of pollen which is carried by the wind to the pistils.

You have sometimes noticed in the spring that after a rain the pools of water are surrounded by a ring of yellow powder and you have perhaps thought it was sulphur.  It was not sulphur but was composed of millions of pollen grains from flowers.  One spring Sunday I laid my hat on the seat in church.  When I picked it up at the end of the service I found considerable dust on it.  I brushed the dust off, but on reaching home I found some remaining and noticed that is was yellow, so I examined it with a magnifying glass and found that it was nearly all pollen grains.  Then I rubbed my finger across a shelf in my room and found it slightly dusty; the magnifying glass showed me that this dust was half pollen.  This shows what a great amount of pollen is produced and discharged into the air, and it shows that very few pistils could escape even if they were under cover of a building.

To make sure of cross pollination nature has in some cases placed the stamens and pistils in different flowers on the same plant.  This will be found true of the flowers of the squashes, melons and cucumber.  Below some of the flower buds will be seen a little squash, melon or cucumber (Fig. 75).  These are the ovaries of pistils and the stigmas will be found within the bud or will be seen when the bud opens.  But no stamen will be found here.  Other flowers on these plants will be found to possess only stamens.  These staminate flowers produce pollen and then die.  They do not produce any fruit, but their pollen is necessary for the little cucumbers, squashes and melons to develop.

Another example is the corn plant.  Here the pistils are on the ear, the corn silk being the styles and stigmas, while the pollen is produced in the tassel at the top of the plant.

With some plants we find that not only are the pistils and stamens in separate flowers but the staminate and pistilate flowers are placed on different plants.  This will be found true of the osage orange and the willow.

In many flowers that have both stamens and pistils or are perfect flowers the stigmas and pollen ripen at different times.

With some varieties of fruit it is found that the pistils cannot be fertilized by pollen of the same variety.  This is true of most of our native plums.  For example, the pistils of the wild goose plum cannot be fertilized by pollen of wild goose plums even if it comes from other trees than the one bearing the pistils.  They must have pollen from another variety of plum.