HAVE PLANTS A PEDIGREE? 



133 



forgotten in the next. Thirty years ago Charles Darwin discovered 

 the German's idea in an old, castaway volume, and at once he began 

 to employ his matchless powers of observation in questioning Nature 

 for its truth. He has taught us how to use our eyes. Let us look. 



One of our most beautiful shrubs is the mountain-laurel {Kalmia 

 latifolia). It blossoms all over in corymbs of bell-shaped flowers, 

 white, tinged with red, having short nectaries and recurved stamens, 

 whose anthers are inserted in little pits of the corolla. In Fig. 1 the 

 flower is shown with the anthers out of their sockets. In Fig. 2 we 

 have a section of the flower showing the recurved stamens and the 

 anthers resting in their pouches. It will be seen that the stamens are 

 shorter than the style. How is the anther to be liberated from the 

 pouch ? And how is the pollen to be carried to the stigma? 



Fig. 2. 



The kalmia is one of the most showy shrubs along the wooded way- 

 sides of Xew England, and is very attractive to bumble-bees. Now, 

 your bumble-bee is the clumsiest of insect. His action is as ungrace- 

 ful as his person. He can do nothing expertly and neatly. He cannot 

 even sting you while on the wing, but must first alight and adjust him- 

 self. At nectar-getting he is as clum^ as at stinging. He sjyraicls over 

 a flower, pushes here and there among the delicate organs, and gets 

 himself thoroughly bedaubed with pollen. This clumsiness makes 

 him a good marriage-priest for the flowers. The color of the laurel 

 attracts him, and the nectary promises honey. He lights, gets his legs 

 entangled among the stamens, and as he jostles them they spring from 

 their little pits with a sharp snap and scatter their pollen over his 

 back. In visiting another flower some of the pollen will find its way 

 to the stigma and thus secure cross-fertilization. 



The iris would seem, at first thought, to have been specially 

 planned for se//*-fertilization. As will be seen in Fig. 3, the petaloid 

 stigma covers the petaloid stamen. But a most curious fact is that, 

 while the stigmatic surface is brought right up against the stamen, the 



