308 PAUCITY OF BLUE FLOWERS. 



the second place, the results may of course be due to 

 the taste, quantity, or accessibility of the honey (all of 

 which we know exercise a great influence), rather than 

 by the colour of the flower. Still the table rather 

 seemed to indicate that bees preferred red, white, and 

 yellow, to blue. 



I may very likely be asked, if blue is the favourite 

 colour of bees, and if bees have had so much to do 

 with the origin of flowers, how is it that there are 

 so few blue ones ? I believe the explanation to be 

 that all blue flowers have descended from ancestors 

 in which the flowers were green ; or, to speak more 

 precisely, in which the leaves immediately surround- 

 ing the stamens and pistil were green ; and that they 

 have passed through stages of white or yellow, and gene- 

 rally red, before becoming blue. That all flowers were 

 originally green and inconspicuous, as those of so many 

 plants are still, has, I think, been shown by recent 

 researches, especially those of Darwin, Miiller, and 

 Hildebrand. 



But what are the considerations which seem to 

 justify us in concluding that blue flowers were formerly 

 yellow or white ? Let us consider some of the orders 

 in which blue flowers occur with others of diff'erent 

 colom^s. 



For instance, in the Eanunculaceae,' those with 

 simple open flowers, such as the buttercups and Thalic- 



• I take most of the following facts from Miiller's admirable 

 work on Alpine Flowers. 



