A pastoral scene that pleases the eye –
Soft cattle, still ewes, with lambkins drink,
And the pannequins crowded on the hills
Filled with Jersey Fairy Flora.
A small cousin of the poppy is a cup of cream. You and I might think it doesn’t look much like its brighter cousin, but then not all cousins look alike!
Botanists say they are cousins. Botanists are people who study plants well. They say the poppy and the cup of cream are cousins!
A cup of cream colors a field, as does either a poppy or a buttercup. Her pale light catches Mrs. Bug’s attention. At once you think of eating. She feels there must be good food waiting for her in such a beautiful place. When you get close, whiff! Her nose sniffed with pleasure. Surely a wonderful treat awaits her.
Flip down onto a cream cup. You smell more honey. There is a yellow spot shining in its eye at the bottom of the petal.
”bubble! bubble! “,” she bifurcates. “What a lovely table for dinner.”
Creeps fast. As she goes, she knocks on the stamens. At once, the anthers open and pollen is poured onto them. When you eat all the feast that was put into the first cream cup, you go to a second. Here the pistils are ready for making seeds. As she passes through the honey passages in the cup, her legs touch the stigmas and shake some pollen onto them. The stigmas send pollen to the ovules and the seeds begin to develop.
Let’s take a look at the cream cup. Is the Corolla Satin like its poppy cousin? Does he polish the inside of his petals as Mrs. Buttercup does? Is the corolla woven of a thin material like the corolla of a poppy or a buttercup ranunculus?
Count the petals. You see she has six, while Poppy has only four, and Buttercup has more than five. You see that three of the petals are positioned a little closer to the center than the other three. This is a very good plan. If it gets dark, wet, or cold, the cream cup wraps its petals around the stamens and pistils to keep them secure. With such thick petals, she couldn’t bend them tightly enough if they were all put into one circle. You can try it with paper. Cut a six-petal flower in one circle.. Cut another flower in two groups of three petals. Now, wrap them up. What makes the smaller package? Which is better to prevent a cold?
Look at the cream cup bud. See how the cup felt. This is Cream-Cup’s way of keeping her baby flowers warm. You see the three chalices on the cradle. Are they hairy from the inside?
Now look at the flower again. Is there any cup on it? nothing. Now you see that Mrs. Karim Cup has some of the same habits as her cousin, Mrs. Bobby. She pushes her cup early. That is why its petals must be bent tightly. They do the function of the calyx in keeping the pollen and pistils safe.
If you want to know how many stamens there are, you have to know how to count. It’s not easy four or five for them. As you can see, the study of flowers will help you in the counting process. You don’t like being able to count the stamens in a cream cup, do you?
There are a number of pistils as well. At first, they are joined together in a ring. As they get older, they loosen themselves from the ring and stand on their own.
If you look at the leaves and the stem, you see that they are well covered with hairs. This indicates that Mrs. Cream Cup likes to grow early in the spring. She comes out in the warm sunlight, but she’s ready for the cold nights. It does not like its plants to be bitten by frost before its flowers make good seeds.
Do you know the status of the cream cup seeds? See how they swell between the seeds. This gives each soft little seed its own little cell. The dry seed packet will easily break between the two seed cells, then the seeds will fall out.
Do you play any games with a cream cup? We didn’t do that when I was a little girl, but other kids probably did. If you know of any games with them, would you tell your teacher? Then, perhaps, you will tell me.
You can draw a cream cup easily. See how simple the leaves are. They are not cut into pieces like poppy leaves and buttercups. When you draw the flower, be sure to put many, many stamens. Mrs. Karim Kass is sure she wants a lot of pollen. And it’s a good pollen too.
We have some?
What is superplum? How do we take care of him
The original wildflowers? by Gardenstead