The pollen grains the bees carry home have a very different fate. They are crushed and soaked and kneaded with honey and fed to baby bees. But the flowers are willing the bees should have some to live on, and so each flower makes thousands more than it needs. You see, if it did not give the bees something to eat, they would not come and they could not live on honey alone; they, too, need the protoplasm in the pollen to nourish them. Some kinds of flowers use their own pollen. They do not need the bees and do not want them. So they keep their pollen shut up tightly and do not make any honey to coax the bees to come. But nearly all flowers wish to have other pollen than their own. And this they can only get by the help of other people’s wings, as they have none of their own. [Illustration: [Flower]] THE POLLEN. [Illustration: [Flower]] What does the pollen do? It helps the ovule change to a seed. It feeds the bees and the wasps and the flies. But above all, it helps the ovule change to a seed. THE ANTHERS. [Illustration: [Anthers]] Anthers, anthers, full of pollen, Cunning cupboards of the bee, Stamen flour amply hiding, What have you for me, for me? What have you for me? [Illustration: [Anthers]] Pollen have I, plenty of it, Pollen for my darling bee; Pollen every day I blossom For my bee, but none for thee, For thee, none for thee. OVULE CELLS. [Illustration: [Ovule]] You will be glad to know that the little ovules at the heart of the morning-glory and of all other flowers are single cells. They have an outside wall and are filled with protoplasm. When a pollen cell is formed from the inside of the anther, it separates and is no longer connected with anything. This is not the case with the ovule. It is fastened to the ovary by a little stem, for it will stay there and grow; and it must have a way to get food from its parent plant. It gets the food through this little stem. You know what happens when the flower opens. The bees bring pollen, and the protoplasm of the pollen joins that of the ovule. As soon as this happens the ovule begins to change. We say it _grows_. It gets the food to grow on from the mother plant through the little stem which is fastened to the inside of the ovary.