Lesson CLIII

The Pansy

Leading thought—The pansy is a member of the violet family. The flower often resembles a face; the colors, markings and fragrance all attract the bees, who visit it for the nectar hidden in the spur of the lower petal.

Method—The children naturally love pansies because of the resemblance of these flowers to quaint little faces. They become still more interested after they see the little man with the green head, which appears in the flower as it fades. A more practical interest may be cultivated by studying the great numbers of varieties in the seed catalogs and learning their names. This is one of the studies which leads directly to gardening. There are many beautiful pansy poems which should be read in connection with the lesson.

Observations—1. How does the pansy flower resemble a face? Where are the eyes? The nose? The mouth? How many petals make the pansy forehead? The cheeks? The chin?

2. Where is the nectar in the pansy? Which petal forms the nectar-tube?

3. Describe how a bee gets the nectar. Where does she stand while probing with her tongue?

4. Where is the pollen in the pansy? What is the peculiar shape of the anthers? How do the two lower stamens differ in form from the three upper ones?

5. Where is the stigma? Does the bee’s tongue go over it or under it to reach the nectar? Describe the pansy arrangement for dusting the bee with pollen and for getting pollen from her tongue.

6. Observe the soft little brushes at the base of the two side petals. What do you think they are for?

7. Take a fading flower; remove the petals, and see the little man sitting with his crooked legs in the nectar-tube. What part of the flower makes the man’s head? What parts form his cape? Of what is his pointed, scalloped collar formed?

8. How many sepals has the pansy? Describe them. How are they attached? When the flower fades and the petals fall, do the sepals also fall?

9. Where in the flower is the young seed-pod? Describe how this looks after the petals have fallen.

10. Describe how the seed-pod opens. How many seeds are there in it? How are they scattered?

11. Study the pansy stem. Is it solid? Is it smooth or rough? Is it curved? Does it stand up straight or partially recline on the ground?

12. Take a pansy leaf and sketch it with the stipules at its base. Can you find two pansy leaves exactly alike in shape, color and size?

13. At what time should the pansy seed be planted? How should the soil be prepared?

Supplementary reading—“April Fools” (p. 50), “Pansy Song” (p. 125), Nature in Verse, compiled by Mary J. Lovejoy; “Garden Folk” (p. 179), “Pansies” pp. 183–184, Among Flowers and Trees with the Poets, Wait & Leonard; “A Yellow Pansy” (p. 124), Nature Pictures by American Poets compiled by Annie Russell Marble.

I dropped a seed into the earth. It grew, and the plant was mine.

It was a wonderful thing, this plant of mine. I did not know its name, and the plant did not bloom. All I know is that I planted something apparently as lifeless as a grain of sand and there came forth a green and living thing unlike the seed, unlike the soil in which it stood, unlike the air into which it grew. No one could tell me why it grew, nor how. It had secrets all its own, secrets that baffle the wisest men; yet this plant was my friend. It faded when I withheld the light, it wilted when I neglected to give it water, it flourished when I supplied its simple needs. One week I went away on a vacation, and when I returned the plant was dead; and I missed it.

Although my little plant had died so soon, it had taught me a lesson; and the lesson is that it is worth while to have a plant.—The Nature-Study Idea, L. H. Bailey.

“The summer’s flower is to the summer sweet,
Though to itself it only live and die.”

—Shakespeare.