196 Views on the Uses of the Nectary 



and minute anatomical investigations, are absolutely necessary 

 before any such theory as this that I propose can be clearly 

 and satisfactorily established. But my aim is to attract the 

 attention of some of our eminent botanists to the subject, with 

 the hope that they will furnish us with abundance of good and 

 substantial information on a point so interesting to every lover 

 of flowers. 



The nectary secretes a sweet honey-like juice, called nectar, 

 a portion of which supplies with food the little embryo seeds 

 in the ovary, while the remainder is partly consumed by in- 

 sects, and partly exposed to the influence of external agency 

 by the petals of the corolla, where it undergoes such a change 

 as fits it for nourishment to the anthers. This nourishing of 

 the sexual organs appears to be the primary use of the corolla 

 and nectary, though on this point " doctors differ." Some 

 have even maintained that the nectary is not essential to fruc- 

 tification (Milne's Bot. Diet., art. Nectary), and that it is 

 merely a superfluous appendage to the flower (when distinct 

 from the corolla), furnishing food to insects. Nature, how- 

 ever, makes nothing superfluous ; and, although thousands of 

 insects live upon nothing but nectar, this furnishing of food 

 for insects I conceive to be a secondary office of the nectary ; 

 and they, in return for the food thus derived, efficiently benefit 

 the plant, by assisting it to perform the important function of 

 reproduction : for, entering the flower in search of nectar, 

 they disperse the pollen, and scatter it on the stigma ; or, if 

 the male and female organs are in distinct flowers, convey the 

 pollen which adheres to their feet and wings from the former 

 to the latter. Bees, flies, and beetles, of various kinds, ban- 

 quet on this luscious fare ; and butterflies and moths have 

 spiral tongues formed for nothing else than sipping its delicious 

 sweets. Dr. Darwin relates his having counted, on a plant 

 of Cacalia suaveolens, which produces a great quantity of 

 nectar, besides bees of various sorts without number, above 

 two hundred painted butterflies, which gave it the beautiful 

 appearance of being covered with additional flowers. 



The corolla has generally been considered as merely a cur- 

 tain to the floral bed, affording to the sexual organs protection 

 from external injuries. But this, I am disposed to believe, is 

 also a secondary office of the organ ; the primary use being, 

 as before stated, to expose to the action of air, light, and heat 

 the nectar, and thus transform it into the proper nutriment 

 of the anthers, in like manner as the sap is exposed and 

 elaborated in the leaves, before it returns to form the new 

 wood. 



That the offices here assigned to the nectary and corolla 



