164 Plants and their Ways in South Africa 



copias with honey, that they make up arrears by economizing 

 in pollen. 1 



However nicely flowers are adapted for scattering their 

 pollen as dust, some of it is sure to be wasted. The pollen of 

 the Orchid is bound up in neat parcels (Pollinia), each pro- 

 vided with a gummed label attached to an elastic cord, or the 

 two parcels may be attached to one label. At meal times 

 butterflies or moths collect these parcels, which become firmly 

 gummed on to some part of their bodies, and as they go from 

 flower to flower they deliver directly to the stigmas some of the 

 quickening grains. You can see how it is done by applying a 

 pencil point to the two white labels at the entrance of a 

 Satyrium or a Disa flower. 



The moth or butterfly sometimes gets so many of these 

 parcels on to various parts of its body as to seriously incon- 

 venience it. Sometimes their tongues become so covered that 

 they starve to death. Professor Gray illustrates a moth flying 

 with a pollen mass on each eye. Fortunately each eye is 

 made up of hundreds of smaller ones, so 

 the moth has enough left to guide him to 

 another flower. 



Microloma^ Secamone (Baviaan's touw), 

 Asclepias (the milk bush), which is so 

 plentiful on the Karroo, and all their family 

 have their pollen in masses also. One of 

 this family cultivated in gardens is known 

 as the Fly-catcher. Toward evening all 

 kinds of moths are caught by their feet 

 between the edges of two stamens just 

 where two parcels are joined together by 

 a black gland. Most of the prisoners have 

 a short sentence, as will be found by look- 

 ing for them the next morning. One beauti- 

 ful moth imprisoned overnight was seen to 

 escape next day, but it carried a pollinium with it, as it escaped 

 with a jerk, from the little slot where the gland is situated. 



Fig. 162.— Pollinia 

 of an Orchid, with 

 their pedicels united 

 by the rostellum. 

 (From Thom6 and 

 Bennett's "Struc- 

 tural and Physio- 

 logical Botany ". ) 



1 To know what Orchids mean by masquerading as they do, Darwin's 

 book on " The Fertilization of Orchids " should be read. The beautifully 



