Flowers 



In gardens the plants are unnaturally placed and 

 unnaturally visited; so that observations, which can be 

 very comfortably made in a garden, are unfortunately 

 of no value whatever. 



The close connection between the insect-world and 

 the flowers which they visit is not at once manifest. 



The two have varied together, the first stupid sort of 

 insect was surely as different from a bumble-bee or a 

 butterfly as the clumsy, yellowish and ugly flowers of a 

 Cycadofilix differ from those of an orchid or a salvia. 

 When one remembers this fact, much that is not at 

 once obvious becomes clear and manifest. For in- 

 stance, there is a distinct change in the various sorts of 

 flower. In spring, the larger proportion are of the open 

 type in which honey is easily obtained. The majority 

 of our richly coloured, complex flowers with concealed 

 honey appear in summer, whilst those with honey half- 

 concealed and accessible to short-lipped insects, are 

 mostly autumn flowering. 



At least this is what has been recorded as the result 

 of two large series of observations taken in quite different 

 places, viz., Robertson, Carlinsville (39° 31' N. lat.), in 

 America, and Brandenburg in Germany.^^ This general 

 correspondence suits exactly with what is known of the 

 insect-world. The majority of insects with long pro- 

 boscids occur in summer, those with medium-sized in 

 autumn, and those with a short proboscis in spring.^^ 



We know also from geological records that the great 

 classes of flower-insects appeared in the Cretaceous 

 period just as suddenly and along with the true flower- 

 ing plants. 



But how difficult and complex are the modern rela- 

 tions between flower and insect, and how impossible to 

 catalogue and classify are the types of visitors ! 



In July and August one finds every sort of flower. 



116 



