x 7 6 The Botanical Gazette. [June, 



On the relation between insects and the forms and 



V 



character of flowers. 



THOMAS MEEHAX. 



Surely all must concede that those who are industriously- 

 collecting and recording facts in relation to the visits of insects 

 to flowers are engaged in a work of great value to science. 

 To my mind one of the weaknesses of these observers is to 

 attach too much importance to their work. In the enthusi- 

 asm of useful discovery, it becomes difficult to believe that 

 the facts noted by other observers can have a value equal to 

 our own, and we must deal leniently with the friends whose 

 weakness induces them to belittle or ignore the work of others 

 in parallel lines. It will do no harm, while so much is being 

 claimed for the influence of visiting insects on the form and 

 general behavior of flowers, to note a few propositions which 

 have been presented and proven during the past few years, 

 and in which I think my own work has had a place, which 

 surely show that insects are not the all important factors in 

 many given results credited to them. 



1. Many changes in the forms of flowers are attributed to 

 the insect's touch, and it is claimed that modification has 

 slowly proceeded through the ages responsive to these insect 

 habits; but it is surely not denied, at this day, that change 

 does not occur by slow modification, but by leaps, and often by 

 leaps of a gigantic kind. Insects can do nothing here. 



2. It has been shown that in the earlier stages of fertili- 

 zation there is no reason why a flower may not be indiffer- 

 ently of either sex, and that the final determination of this 

 matter is a question of nutrition, with which an insect can 

 have little to do. 



3- There is no question that a flower proterandrous in one 

 district or season may be proterogynous in another— that it 



is wholly i matter of meteorological influence, in which an in- 

 sect has no place. 



4- Fertility in plants is not wholly a matter of pollina- 

 tion, borne plants are barren though the pollen tubes can be 

 traced to the ovules and myriads of fruit resulting from per- 

 fect fertilization fall in an early stage. Nutrition is of as 



