DEAD-NETTLES 155 
for existence those plants had best chance in which the 
leaves were like the stinging nettle, and that such 
specimens of white nettle lived to produce other plants 
like themselves, and the tendency grew till the two leaves 
were almost identical, the question at once arises, “ But 
why should this plant especially, of all those that grow 
in ditches, have adopted this sham stinging leaf, which 
would be just as useful to twenty more?” And we can 
only say that we don’t know, but that if botanists go on 
steadily watching all they can, they may some day be able 
to explain both the White Nettle and the Nettle-leaved 
Bell-flower. 
Up in the top of the helmet in the white nettle flower 
are arched the pistil and stamens, and the latter ripen 
first, so that their pollen shall not spoil the chance of the 
stigma being fertilised from some other flower. The bees, 
lighting on the lower lip as a platform, shake the base of 
the filaments, and the pollen is showered on their backs. 
They fly off with their feed of honey and go to another 
flower. Here the flower has perhaps been open longer, 
and you will find that the stamens have shed all their 
pollen, but the pistil has now begun to grow again and 
it puts forth a sticky top. The bee, diving down for 
honey, touches this stigma with his back, and the pollen 
dust is promptly taken up. 
The Meadow Sage has a most ingenious device for 
ensuring that the bee shall get an ample load. The two 
anthers are set on a cross-bar, as it were, at the top of 
the short filament, one arm of which is much longer than 
the other. One anther is set on the short arm deep 
down in the tube, and the other, which alone bears pollen, 
is up in the helmet. When the bee thrusts his tongue 
against the anther which blocks his way to the food he 
