THE FLOWER AND THE BEE 



memories which it is pleasant to recall on many a wintry day. 

 Banks collected 38*2 species of insects, a larger number than has 

 ever been recorded for any other flower : 42 bugs (Hemiptera) ; 

 58 beetles; 165 bees, wasps, ichneumon-flies, ants, and saw- 

 flies; and 117 flies. 



Most of this great group of regular flowers, comprising tens 

 of thousands of species, are perfect or hermaphrodite, that is, 

 possess both stamens and pistils and can easily be self-fertilized. 

 Are, then, the visits of insects useless, and is cross-jjollination 

 needless .^ Do the great mass of the higher plants depend on 

 self-pollination, and is the much-vaunted importance of in- 

 sects as pollen-carriers mythical? Or is the rank and file of 

 the floral world as dependent on insects for pollination as are 

 the more highly modified forms described in the previous chap- 

 ters .^^ 



In the case of many plants it can easily be observed that 

 the life cycle of the flower is divided into two distinct periods, 

 in one of which the anthers ripen, and in the other the stigmas 

 (dichogamy) ; and consequently in the absence of some agency 

 to carry the pollen they cannot produce seed. Among ento- 

 mophilous (insect-pollinated) flowers this occurs in the carrot 

 family {Umhellijeroe) and among anemophilous (wind-pollinated) 

 flowers in the sedges. In other plants the pollen does not fall 

 on the stigmas, and still others are self -sterile ; but we know so 

 little about most wild flowers that it is often difficult to give a 

 definite answer. There is, however, a group of trees and 

 shrubs, and a most abundant group it is, the pollination of 

 which has been very carefully studied by our agricultural 

 experiment stations — our domestic fruits. So lavish is the 

 bloom of American wild and domesticated fruits that it plays 

 by far the most important part in the floral landscape of June, 

 "when the white tide of bloom scuds across the land, and the 



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