252 The Romance of Wild Flowers 
wall of the corolla, whilst the four perfect ones lie 
along the lower wall and extend over the lower lip 
when the anthers are ripe. The stigmas mature first 
and project over the lower lip, whilst yet the stamens 
are short and lie within the corolla. 
Wasps on visiting the flower cling to the lower lip 
and push their heads in to get at the honey secreted 
by the base of the ovary. If this should happen in an 
old flower, the under-side of their head and “chest” 
is covered with pollen from the anthers, and on visit- 
ing a younger flower this is transferred to the 
stigma, which occupies practically the same position. 
Although the wasps come freely and in numbers to 
these flowers, the plant does not trust them too 
implicitly to do its work. When fertilisation is 
effected, the stigma withers, but until then it remains 
stretched out over the lower lip, and should no insect 
do what is needed before the anthers are mature these 
take up a position over the stigma, and when their 
pollen is shed some of it is sure to fall upon the 
stigma. To leave no doubt that the black scale in 
the roof of the flower is the retrograded fifth stamen, 
it sometimes develops a more or less—usually less— 
perfect anther producing a little pollen, but it is 
rarely that it opens and discharges this pollen. It 
is an interesting fact that wasps instead of beginning 
at the lowest flower on a spike, as we saw the bee 
doing in the case of the Foxglove, commence with the 
highest one, and this explains why wasp - flowers 
should mature their stigmas before the anthers. In 
the last flowers visited on one plant the wasp gets 
laden with pollen, with which it fertilises the newly- 
opened blossoms of the next plant visited. 
