* '\ 



A PLANT THAT HAS OVERREACHED ITSELF 



This milkweed developed a stickv juice, presumably to keep insects from getting into and out 

 of its flowers too quickly, and to ensure that they would get well covered wth pollen betore 

 they left. The device works rather too well for the good of the species. Two legs lett by 

 a recent visitor can be seen in the flower; it is probable that that particular visitor will not 

 cross-pollinate any more milkweed blossoms, therefore all the pollen which he carried away 

 is wasted. Above is a fly which, in visiting the flower, became so gummed up as to be un- 

 able to get away, a foot being stuck to a wing. Copyrighted photomicrograph by A. «j. 

 Eldredge, University of Illinois. (Fig. 7.) 



