74, The Romance of Wild Flowers 
necessity to describe the Columbine (Aquilegia 
vulgaris) beyond the flower-parts, for its general 
cultivation in gardens renders its form and foliage 
familiar to many who have never met with the wild 
plant. The flower is well equipped for insect- 
fertilisation, for its five sepals are petal-like and 
coloured, the five petals are concave and each 
developed backwards into a hooked spur in which 
honey is produced, and the numerous stamens mature 
before the five stigmas. The flower droops, and when 
it opens the bunch of stamens are found lying to the 
lower side of it, with the exception of a few that have 
elevated themselves so that they occupy the centre 
of the flower. As they mature in succession the 
remaining stamens attain this position, and finally 
when the stamens have all shrivelled, the stigmas are 
left in possession of the centre. Long-tongued bees 
are the fertilising agents, and they regard the stamens 
as a convenient alighting-stage from which they can 
push their tongues into the petal spurs and extract 
the honey from the hollow knob at the very end. 
And when they retire their under side is covered with 
pollen, which is rubbed against the stigmas when 
they visit an older flower. Cross-fertilisation must 
take place in this case. When one considers the 
angle at which these flowers hang, the hollow knob 
at the end of the spur is seen to be a necessity ; 
without it, the honey would drain out to the mouth 
of the tube, where any vulgar little fly could lap it 
up without earning it. The Common Humble-bee 
(Bombus terrestris) cannot reach the honey legitimately, 
but has learned to bite holes in the spur, near the 
nectary, and suck it without earning it. 
