Arrangements for Securing Union of Sexes 313 



spread flat on the ground. The flower, which is shown greatly 

 enlarged in the accompanying picture (figure 113), has a struc- 

 ture so remarkable that without elaborate observational studies 

 no one could ever imagine either the identity or the use of the 

 parts. But the strap-shaped piece in 

 front is a petal; the opening at its top 

 leads into the greatly-elongated nectar 

 tube shown next behind it ; the two struc- 

 tures converging above this opening are 

 the halves of one anther, each of which 

 contains a great many pollen grains tied 

 together into one mass by threads; these 

 threads collect together into two sticky 

 discs shown as two white oval structures 

 each side of the opening; and the darker 

 space between anthers and opening is the 

 stigma. The reader will readily recog- 

 nize how different is this construction from 

 that of an ordinary flower; and the im- 

 plication that the parts must possess un- 

 usual functions is correct. The cross- 

 pollinating insect is a moth, with a 

 proboscis (ordinarily carried in a pendant yig 113.— Flower, much en- 

 close coil) having a length sufficient to "Z^'^^Z.S!'^. "^ 

 reach to the bottom of the nectar tube ^^ated by the remarkable 



method described in the 



(figure 114). It alights upon the strap- text. The hlndermost part, 



, , , , not there mentioned, is the 



shaped petal, whose narrowness compels ^vary and stalk. (Reduced 

 its approach in a very definite position, ^X,?."''' '^' "" " ' ' " '' " ^ 

 and, as it pushes far down for the nectar, 



it brings the two sides of its head, — its huge eyes, to be exact, — 

 into contact with the two sticky discs, which come away with 

 their attached pollen as the insect withdraws. Moths have 

 often been caught with these pollen masses attached to their 

 eyes, which were formerly supposed to be afflicted by some kind 



