the fecundating or fertilizing dust contained within the antherae or tops of the stamens, and dispersed upon the female organ when ripe for the purposes of impregnation. See Botany.

This dust, corresponding to the seminal fluid in animals, is commonly of a yellow colour; and is very conspicuous in the summits of some flowers, as the tulip and lily. Its particles are very minute, and of extreme hardness. Examined by the microscope, they are generally found to assume some determinate form, which often predominates, not only through all the species of a particular genus, but also through the genera of a natural family or order. The powder in question being triturated, and otherwise prepared in the stomach of bees, by whom great quantities are collected in the hairy brushes with which their legs are covered, is supposed by some authors to produce the substance known by the name of wax; a species of vegetable oil, rendered concrete by the presence of an acid, which must be removed before the substance can be rendered fluid.