FROM BLUE TO PURPLE FLOWERS 



\ 

 ^^ If blue is the favourite colour of bees, ajid if bees have 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 desceiided from 

 ancestors in which the flowers tvere green ; or, to speak more p?-ecisely, in 



which the leaves surrounditig the stamens and pistil were green ; and i 



that they have passed through stages of 7a hi te or yellow, and generally red, J 



before becoming blue^ — SiR JOHN LuBBOCK in "Ants, Bees, and Wasps.'* 



