Word: pistils
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...pistil of an alfalfa flower is a strong spring held in tension by two "keel petals." When the bee alights on the petals, the pistil snaps up and out. This process ensures cross-fertilization by showering the bee with pollen and spanking other pollen loose from the bee's body...
...often the flower plays too rough, and the snap of the pistil knocks the bee for a loop. Tough wild bees will take this punishment. Gently bred tame bees will not. They sneak up on the flower and steal its nectar stealthily without springing the pistil. The flower thus remains unfertilized and bears no alfalfa seed...
...Nebraska and other regions that produce alfalfa seed, wild bees are getting scarcer. In recent years, the yield of seed per acre has been steadily going down. Dr. Hixson has been crossing alfalfa strains, breeding them for gentleness of pistil. He hopes to develop flowers with so soft a wallop that even the timidest bee will not be afraid to alight on them...
Ilka Chase's first novel is the liveliest agitation of stamens and pistil since the last flowering of the night-blooming cereus. Like the heady perfumes of its heroine (a chrome-plated Manhattan cosmetician), In Bed We Cry derives its strength from a dash of civet. The plot is a triangle whose base is always broad, whose chief points are streamlined by agelessness...