YUCCA AND FIG 



But instead of reading, one should watch a bumble-bee 

 visiting the Foxglove flowers. The sight of her busily 

 thrusting her great hairy body into the bell, which almost 

 exactly fits her shape, while she gurgles with satisfaction, 

 will teach the reader far more about the romance of flowers 

 than many pages of description. If he then carefully ex- 

 amines the flower, he will see how the honey, the arched 

 converging stamens, and the style, are placed exactly in the 

 right place and where they will have the most effect.^ 



One orchid, A7igraecum sesquipedale, has a spur eighteen 

 inches long, and the great Darwin suggested that there must 

 be an insect somewhere with a tube long enough to reach the 

 honey. Such an insect, a large moth, was actually brought 

 home from Madagascar, the place where this orchid occurs, 

 after a lapse of many years ! 



Perhaps more remarkable than anything else are such cases 

 as the Yucca and the Yucca-moth or the Fig-wasp and the 

 Fig. 



The Yucca is a fine lily-like plant resembling the Aloes in 

 general appearance. A particular sort of moth lives entirely 

 upon the Yucca. When the flowers open, the mother-moth 

 kneads up a ball of pollen and places an egg inside. This 

 ball she thrusts down the style into the ovary of the flower. 

 There a grub develops from the egg and eats the pollen, yet 

 some of this pollen fertilizes the young seeds. If Yuccas 

 died out the moth would be exterminated. If the moths 

 were destroyed, no Yuccas would ever set their seed ! 



The Fig has two sorts of flower. The one (caprifig) 

 produces only male or pollen-yielding flowers. The other is 



^ Compare Shelley, who watched all day "the yellow bees in the ivy 

 bloom," but he " did not heed what things they be." Moreover, though 

 he appreciated the general spirit of the bee, it is very unlikely that he 

 saw any of them on the Ivy ! 



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