But after the pollen has reached the stigma the fruit grows rapidly. The corolla falls, and the stem that holds the fruit curls up. It curls up until it has drawn the green fruit down under the leaves, out of the way of the buds that wish to open. The stigma and style fall off at last, and leave the fruit to ripen alone. [Illustration: [Tropæolum]] WHO LIES CURLED UP? [Illustration: [Fruit]] Who lies curled up under the shields? Under the shields of its parents? A cunning young fruit peeps out o’er the world, From under the shields of its parents. [Illustration: [Flower]] It is parted in three with a seed in each part, This cunning young fruit I’ve told you about. It is parted in three, yet the three are one fruit, Lying under the shields of the parents. The stems curl up and pull it down Under the shields of its parents. It lies there all safe, so near the warm ground, Under the shields of its parents! MORE ABOUT THE TROPÆOLUM. [Illustration: [Tropæolum]] The tropæolum, which people call nasturtium, has shields to defend itself. Warriors are content with one shield, but the tropæolum has many. They have only to protect themselves from the darts of the enemy, but the tropæolum has a harder task: it has to protect itself against the pangs of hunger. It needs many shields to do this, for hunger is a tireless foe, and has his quiver always full of arrows. You see, in the tropæolum the shields are the leaves, and they are held out on long stems to catch the darts Apollo, the sun, flings at them. These are not unfriendly darts, but as they strike the little shields of the tropæolum they make them tingle with life. Then the shield leaves go to work and make food for the plant. They make starch and many other things. They make a spicy juice, for one thing, that causes our tongues to smart if we taste it. Sometimes we bite a tropæolum stem, for we like the taste of the sharp juice. But we do not want too much of it, for it makes the palate at the back of the nose tingle, and that is why we call it “nasturtium.” “Nasturtium,” you know, comes from two Latin words, _nasus tortus_, which mean “convulsed nose”; and nobody likes to have a “convulsed nose” very long at a time! “Nasturtium” is not the right name for our plant with its many shields. There is another plant which “convulses” our noses, and which the botany tells us is the nasturtium, but which we call _water cress_. We eat it in the spring of the year. The right name of our garden nasturtium is “tropæolum,” which comes from a Greek word meaning “trophy,” its many shields probably being likened to so many trophies taken from the enemy.