204 THE PLANT WORLD 



eye may be keeuer sighted and his body more submissive to his will. 

 The bill may be a better instrument than the proboscis for extracting 

 the honey. Who can tell whether the blossom and the bird are made 

 for each other's best interests, and the moth is an interloper. Were 

 Darwin with us we might ask him. It seems true that the flowers once 

 ^dsited by the humming bird are not relished thereafter bj' the moth, 

 and Levite-like are passed by, while a number of moths may follow in 

 succession in their visits to those flowers undrained by the bird. 



Those who are familiar with the honeysuckle blooms are aware 

 that upon a vine some are white and others are creamy in color, then a 

 light yellow-orange, and lastly a darker shade of the two neighboring 

 colors as the flowers hang collapsed upon the short stems. The rapid- 

 ity with which these blossoms pass these stages has been a matter of 

 observation and surprise. Abundant facts were obtained by the use of 

 strings mentioned at the outset, and daily inspection of the flowering 

 branches. Each of these branches usually has upon an average six 

 successive nodes that are to bear blossoms, the series being preceded 

 by a few neutral nodes and followed by an indefinite number that are 

 entirely vegetative. The blooming of a series represented by any stem 

 is usually compassed by a week or at most ten days — the rapidity seem- 

 ing to depend upon the individual peculiarities of the plant or some 

 circumstances of nourishment and the weather. During the period of 

 Avatching there was a rainy day and night, and upon the intervening 

 evening there was but little show of bloom and a noticeable absence of 

 the characteristic fragrance, and of course of the insect and bird at- 

 tendants. A halt was called in the regular procession of bloom that 

 may or may not have afl:"ected the whole period of blossoming. But 

 this is a fact that can only be obtained by extending the observations 

 over many seasons. 



To the reader unfamiliar Arith the Lonicera, it may be said that 

 the long, slender, twining stems bear their leaves in pairs upon oppo- 

 site sides of the stem. Between the bases of the leaf stalk and the 

 stem above, a bud arises which quickly forms a stem an inch or so long, 

 bearing a pair of small leaves, and between these two flower buds form. 

 It is thus seen that at each joint or node upon the stem there are two 

 brief side shoots each bearing two flowers — that is, four blossoms are 

 produced Avith but A^ery few exceptions at a node, or none at all. When 

 once a series of flowers has begun there are no breaks in it until the 

 end is reached. The four buds very regularly open upon the same 

 afternoon or evening, and display their four white corolla lobes through 

 the live-long night. The next morning they begin to take on a sugges- 

 tion of cream color, Avhich rapidly develops as the daj^ declines, and 

 become strongly in contrast with the four swelling Avhite buds of the 



