Flowers 



or shrouded in the felt darkness of a London fog, whilst 

 others will always oversleep themselves. 



Early in the season, when the weather is favourable, 

 one finds the first flowers and first insects. Later, as 

 summer approaches, one finds various times of the day 

 utilised by certain flowers and their visitors until the 

 complex variety of July and August is attained. After 

 these months the number rapidly diminishes, but varies 

 according to the weather. Even late in November of 

 1908 I found twenty-four flowers open along three 

 miles of a roadside ; four were grasses that had also 

 blossomed in spring. This is one of the simplest 

 of the fitting reactions which have been so often 

 referred to. 



Flowers are not only specialised but are also most 

 adaptable to circumstances. 



The secretion of honey is another very interesting 

 character. Professor Henslow's theory, that the con- 

 tinual visits of insects and their bites and scratches 

 have produced the honey-secretion, has not been 

 adopted by many botanists. Sugar is, of course, very 

 common in plant tissues, for it is as some form of 

 sugar that the products of assimilation travel about 

 the plant. Such sugars will certainly diffuse to any 

 part of the plant where it is required. If it exudes 

 and is taken by insect visitors, then less sugar will 

 be available for the building up of stamens or petals, 

 so that there might easily be a tendency for petals or 

 stamens to become first honey secreting, then reduced, 

 and finally nothing but nectaries. 



If one compares the long spur of many orchids 

 (usually formed in the modified petal called the lip) 

 with the honey spurs of the columbine, of larkspur, 

 of violets, of Linaria (Toadflax), the resemblance is very 

 remarkable. All these are honey-secreting modifica- 



119 



