Fertilization

in botany, the action of pollen on the young seed in the ovary of the pistil. See article on FLOWER. When corn is in the silk the tassel is shedding a shower of yellow dust called pollen. Each grain of corn on the young cob has its thread of silk, the end of which just shows from the end of the husk. Grains of pollen must fall on the gummy ends of the silk, a grain of pollen for each thread, and send long, fine rootlets down the centers of the silk which are really hollow tubes, into the young seeds which then develop into grains of corn. Shelter the silk when the pollen is falling and the corn on that ear will not fill. In some plants the stamens touch the pistils; in some the pollen falls on the end of the pistil. Some plants are wind fertilized, and to some plants, as in most honey-bearing plants, the visitation of insects is necessary to bring pollen either from another or the same flower into touch with the open end of the pistil tube. See article on FIGS for a curious case of carrying pollen from one tree to the fruit of another. Whatever the way in which it may be done, no seed will fill unless a pollen root has grown down the pistil into it. See Cross-Fertilization