The Birds, The Bees, and African Violets

When I walked into the room, my attention was drawn to the three African Violets sitting on the Baker's rack in the south window. One was violet (well, sure!), one pristine white, and one frilly purple and white.

The white one was in absolute full glorious angelic bloom, so clean and literally sparkling, it made me wonder why I hadn't noticed it at all the day before. It's been blooming for at least a couple of weeks, and you wouldn't expect it to look so good after that long, but it was about as close to perfection as it gets. Naturally, the next move for me was to grab the camera and record the beauty and now I'm going to share it with you:

Up close, it's even better...

When I saw this photo on the computer screen, different words ran through my head: pistil, stamen, anther, stigma. And once again, as happens over and over to me, I couldn't tell you which of those corresponds to what structure in that photo. I can remember - and spell - the Latin names for countless plants, but I can't remember what is the pistil, what is the stamen, what is the anther, what is the stigma. I can look this up over and over again, and it just falls through my brain like water through a sieve.

For the record, the four yellow balls are the anthers and the stalks they're on are called filaments. Together, they make up the stamens. The long white thing is the style, with the ball on the end being called the stigma. These comprise the pistil. Ask me in five minutes and I won't be able to tell you any of that from memory.

All I know is that the African Violets are gorgeous right now and they have all the parts they're supposed to. Oh look! This one has a purple pistil! At least I think it's the pistil...