CHAPTER XXXIV 

 INSECTS AND FLOWERS 



The nectar of flowers is a favorite food with many insects; 

 all the moths and butterflies, all the bees, and many kinds 

 of flies are nectar-drinkers. Flower-pollen, too, is food for 

 other hosts of insects, as well as for many of those which 

 take nectar. The hundreds of bee kinds are the most 

 familiar and conspicuous of the pollen-eaters, but many 

 little beetles and some other obscure small insects feed 

 largely on the rich pollen-grains. But the flowers do not 

 provide nectar and pollen to these hosts of insect guests 

 without demanding and receiving a payment which fully 

 requites their apparent hospitality. And several particular 

 things about this payment are of especial interest to us. 

 These are, first, the unusual character of the payment re- 

 ceived; second, the great value of it to the plants; and 

 finally, the strange shifts and devices which the plants 

 exhibit for making the payment certain. This payment 

 is the cross-pollinating of the flowers by their insect visitors. 

 (Cross-pollination is simply the bringing of pollen from the 

 stamens of one flower to the pistils of another flower of the 

 same plant species.) 



In 1793 a German naturalist named Christian Conrad 

 Sprengel published a book called "The Discovered Secret 

 of Nature in the Structure and Fertilization of Flowers." 

 This discovered secret was that insects were instrumental 

 in pollinating flowers and that the colors and shapes of 

 flowers helped to attract insects and compel them to do this 

 pollinating. But it was reserved for the great Darwin to 



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