Growing Up (de Schweinitz)/Chapter 3

by Karl de Schweinitz

Pollen and Sperm

Chapter III

Pollen and Sperm

Before an egg can become an animal or a plant it must be helped to start growing. It cannot start by itself.

The little eggs in the ovaries of the flowers would wither and die if something that we call pollen did not join them and help them to become seeds.

Pollen is the yellow powder that you sometimes find on the tip of your nose after you have tried to smell a snapdragon or a dandelion or a lily. Nearly every flower has pollen.

The next time you see an Easter lily look at it carefully and you will notice, growing out of the middle of the flower, a tall thread or stem. This stem leads to the ovary of the lily. It is called the pistil. Growing up around the pistil but not quite so tall as it is are six threads or stems. On the top of each of these stems is a little lump of pollen.

Pollen is usually yellow. It is so light that it scarcely weighs anything at all. A tiny puff of wind can blow it away. It sticks to whatever touches it just as flour does. If an insect comes too near the pollen it is almost sure to get some of it on its body.

There is a certain kind of moth that is very fond of visiting the Easter lily. When this moth flies into the lily it brushes against the, pollen and the pollen sticks to its shoulders. Then when the moth visits another lily it carries the pollen with it. As it enters this lily it passes the tall pistil that leads to the ovary. The top of the pistil is sticky and it catches some of the pollen from the body of the moth.

No sooner does the pollen reach the top of the pistil than it begins to grow. The pistil is hollow. From each grain of pollen a tiny thread grows down through the pistil into the ovary of the lily. There are the little eggs. Into each egg a thread from a grain of pollen goes and becomes a part of the egg, and the egg

Photograph by Theodore H. Lueders.

Easter Lily. Count six dark tops growing on threadlike stems (the stamens). This is the yellow pollen. The longest thread with the white knobby top is the pistil. It leads to the ovary inside the lily just above where the flower joins the stem.

Photograph by H. Armstrong Roberts.

A butterfly visiting phlox. When the butterfly leaves this flower it will carry pollen with it to another flower.

and the pollen together start growing to be a seed.

This is how the eggs of the flowers and the blossoms begin growing. The wind, or the bees and the butterflies and the moths and other insects, carry the pollen from one flower or blossom to another flower or blossom—from one lily to another lily, from one rose to another rose, and so on. As soon as a grain of pollen touches the top of the pistil it starts growing down through it into the ovary where it enters one of the little eggs and becomes part of it. The pollen and the egg together form the seed. By itself the pollen could not grow to be a seed. The egg needs the pollen and the pollen needs the egg. It is when they join together that they begin to grow to be a seed.

There are some flowers which have only pollen and there are some flowers which have only eggs, but most flowers have both pollen and eggs. Almost always the pollen that joins the eggs comes from another flower—that is, from another flower of the same kind. The flower from which the pollen goes might be called the father, and the flower to which the pollen is carried might be called the mother, so that every seed can be said to have had a mother and a father.

There is something like pollen that starts the eggs of animals growing. This is a very little creature with a very long name. The name is spermatazoon. We shall call it sperm. The sperm is like an animal. It can move. It looks a little bit like the pollywogs that you see in brooks and ponds in the springtime. It seems to be all head and tail, a round little head or body and a very, very, long tail. The sperm is much smaller than the eggs. It is so tiny that you would not be able to see one sperm alone no matter how sharp your eyes might be.

But although one sperm by itself is too small to be seen it is possible for you to see what one million or more sperms crowded together look like. The next time you have fish for dinner ask your mother whether you cannot watch while the fish is split open and cleaned and prepared for cooking. You will find inside the fish either the roe with its thousands of little eggs or some

Drawing by Eleanor M. Paxson.

Sperms of the minnow swimming to the egg.
The sperms and the egg in this picture have been drawn many times larger than the sperms and the egg of this fish really are.

thing that looks like the roe but which is smoother and softer. This is the milt. It is a kind of jelly with millions of sperms in it.

The fish in which you find the eggs or roe is the mother fish. The fish in which you find the sperms or milt is the father fish. It is the milt or sperms of the father fish that starts the eggs of the mother fish growing.

When the mother or roe shad swims away from the ocean and up into the fresh water she does not swim alone. Hundreds of other roe shad swim with her. The roe shad swim until they find the father or buck shad, hundreds of which have gone up the river ahead of them. Then from an opening underneath her body each mother shad sends her eggs into the water. The father shad swims immediately after her and sends out over the eggs a liquid that looks very much like skimmed milk. It is alive with sperms that are too small to be seen.

As soon as a sperm meets an egg it swims right into it. The tail of the sperm drops off and stays outside the egg, but the rest of the sperm joins with the egg just as the pollen from one flower joins the egg of another flower, and together the egg and the sperm start growing to be a baby fish.

Some fish hollow out little nests in the bottom of rivers and other waters and in these nests they start their eggs growing.

With sun fish it is the father who makes the nest. He finds a sandy spot in shallow water. He pushes and pulls the bigger pebbles to the outside of the nest and sweeps it clean with his fins. Looking into the stream you would then see a little scooped out place. This is where the baby sun fish will be hatched.

The father fish now swims away to find a female or roe sun fish. His body becomes brighter as if to attract the roe fish. When he meets one he swims about her inviting her to follow him. They go to the nest. When they reach it they swim toward each other stopping just over the nest. Their bodies touch each other and as they do so the mother sun fish sends the eggs into the water and the father fish sends out the sperms. The sperms join the eggs and the baby fish start growing.

Photograph by H. Armstrong Roberts.

Mother pig.

The father fish then usually drives the mother fish away and it is he who watches over the eggs until the little fish are hatched.

For the sperm to join the egg in the water is not the safest way to start a baby growing. There must be many eggs and many sperms that do not meet, and if they do not meet almost immediately the sperms die, for the sperms cannot live in the water longer than three minutes.

The sperms of chickens and other birds are less likely to be lost than are the sperms of fish. The rooster places them inside the body of the hen where nothing can harm them and where they can easily find the eggs. If you have ever lived on a farm you may have seen the rooster doing this, but if you did not understand what was happening you may have thought that the rooster and the hen were fighting.

The rooster flies up on the back of the hen. While he is there an opening under his tail feathers touches an opening under the tail feathers of the hen. The rooster can then send the sperms into the body of the hen without the same danger of losing them that the shad face when they send their sperms into the water.

As soon as the sperms have left the rooster they go up through the hen until they meet the egg as it leaves the ovary. The hard shell which we must break when we eat an egg has not yet formed about it and one of the sperms—only one—succeeds in entering the egg. The tail of the sperm drops off and stays outside but the rest of the sperm joins the egg. The egg with the help of the sperm now starts growing, and if, after it is laid, it is kept warm it will keep on growing, until it has become a little chicken.

The dog, the lion, the horse, the pig place their sperms in the body of the mother in much the same way that the rooster does but the sperms instead of going through an opening as they do with the rooster pass from these animals through a little pipe or tube that is on the outside of the body. This little pipe or tube is called the penis. When the male animal sends the sperms to the female he seems to be trying to climb on to her back. As he does this the penis fits into an opening in her body. This is the opening of what we call the vagina,

Photograph by J. Fletcher Street.

Dog sitting for his picture.

and it is through the vagina of the mother that the sperms go when they leave the father.

Photograph by Howard Gosner

These little sperms are hundreds of times larger than the real living sperms.

While the sperms are still living in the male animal they stay in two oval shaped places called testicles. The testicles are held in a little bag outside the body and under the penis. It is also through the penis that the urine or waste water passes.

The sperms of men, like those of the four-legged animals, live in two testicles in a little bag under the penis. The father places the sperms in the body of the mother in very much the same way that the four-legged animals do, only the mother and father can lie together facing each other. The penis then fits into the vagina of the mother which has its own opening underneath the opening for the urine or waste water.

When the sperms leave the father they are in a liquid, called semen that is a little thicker than milk and that looks something like milk. The sperms are so tiny that hundreds of them can live in one drop of semen.

As soon as the semen has entered the mother the sperms start swimming toward the egg as it comes from the ovary. The sperm that meets the egg joins it and together the sperm and the egg start growing to be a baby.

This is the way that you began your life. The egg was not you and the sperm was not you. It was when they came together that you became alive. People everywhere begin their lives in this way. Like the fish and the birds and the beasts, we all start to be ourselves when the sperm joins the egg.

Photograph by Edward R. Warren

Six months old.