144 The Romance of Wild Flowers 
well adapted for the struggle for existence as the 
leaves of the grasses. Then it got rid of its leaflets, 
and flattened out its leaf-stalks until they resemble 
a slender and fine-pointed grass-blade. Now, until it 
puts forth its flowers none but the botanist would 
suspect that it was anything but a grass. This 
species, it should be observed, is fully capable of self- 
fertilisation, and some of the flower- buds never 
expand. The Narrow-leaved Everlasting Pea (L. 
sylvestris) has two long and narrow leaflets, sickle- 
shaped stipules, and branching tendrils; throughout 
its length the stem has a flat expansion or wing on 
each side. This is a very near relation of the Broad- 
leaved Everlasting Pea (L. latifolius) of gardens, 
which is probably only a South European variety of it. 
The ingenuity of the flower in adapting its 
structure so that it may profit by the visits of the 
bees is sometimes set at naught, or its practical value 
minimised, by the artfulness of the bee. Take the 
case of L. sylvestris as one of many examples that 
have been recorded. The situation of the honey 
within the staminal tube has already been indicated, 
and in the tube near the base two rounded orifices 
have been left for the passage of the bee’s trunk. Mr. 
Francis Darwin found that sixteen out of twenty-four 
flowers of this species had the left passage larger 
than the right one. The humble-bees to save time 
bite a hole through the standard, and Mr. Francis 
Darwin found that they always make this hole to 
correspond with the left passage, because it is usually 
the larger of the two. He remarks: “It is difficult 
to say how the bees could have acquired this habit. 
Whether they discovered the inequality in the size of 
