Mar. 2,1908.'] Agricultural Gazette of N.S.W. 213 



deep-lined with dark veins wliich all converge about the mouth of the spur, 

 and so shoA' the inquiring insect exactly where to go in search of honey. 

 The lower three on the other hand, have no lines or mirkings, but possess a 

 curious sort of fence running right across the face, intended to prevent other 

 Hying insects from alighting an 1 rifling the flower without fertilising it." 

 The nasturtium is bi-sexual (one of those whose stamen? develop before the 

 pistil), which is said to bs the reason the nectary is situated so far down the 

 spur. In most bi-sexual flowers, in those where the stamens are first to 

 develop, and also in those where the pistil first comes to maturity, the 

 nectary is not situated low down, and as far as we know bees find no 

 difficulty in fertilising them. Such flowers, i.e., those whose nectaries are 

 easily accessible, however, produce plenty of seed. How Ijees must be baffled 

 when they visit unicolour flowers? 



What a waste of time it must be for insects to discover the nectary where 

 Nature has been so remiss as not to put up guide posts. In the wild 

 nasturtium nf India the two upper petals have these "guide posts," but the 

 three lower ones have not. The cultivated descendants of these have altered 

 wonderfully in their shades of colours and markings. Now before me, I 

 have some blooms that are like the originals, only the three lower petals have 

 markings. The markings 0:1 the two upper ones are brick-colour, and in 

 fortn like the broad-arrow, the apex pointing towards the nectary. The 

 marking on the lower petals are somewhat similar only the apex points out 

 wards. In blooms of such character are bees much perplexed to discover 

 the nectary 1 I have also before me a nasturtium unicolour, a pale sulphur- 

 yellow, yet when in the garden I saw the bees wei^e never at a loss which 

 way to turn to find the nectary, and this flower was visited as regularly as 

 trhose of brighter colours, and most pronounced markings. George Massee, 

 in " The Plant World," says " that the only use of colour in the flower is that 

 of nn advertisement indicating their presence to insects." When stamens 

 lose their character as such, and become p'-^tals, the intensity of colour 

 increases and it becomes more attractive to the eye ; nevertheless, the more 

 double a flower becomns the less it is attractive to insects. 



Mr R. T. Baker, Curator, Technical Museum, infurms me that when 

 botanising in the mountainous districts of New South Wales, n^^ar a garden 

 filled with gorgeous-coloured flowers, lie observed a specimen of Panax sam- 

 hnrifolhix, the small, inconspicuous flowers of which were literally swarming 

 with bees in quest of honey and pollen ; and those brightly-coloured blooms 

 in the garden were in nearly every case passed over by the bees for the 

 purjaose of visiting the specimen named. 



Some of the writers I have referred to have given their experience of 

 watching bees searching for the nectary, and the insects' apparent failure to 

 discover it at first sight. Wlnm bees are seen searching about the essential 

 organs of flowers it is not the nectary they are in search of, but the gyrations 

 they make are f(^ the purpose of collecting the grains of pollen. If a bee is 

 seen at work on a sunflower or other composite bloom, her movements in 

 gathering pollen differ greatly from those in collecting honey. Every leg is 



