CH. VI.] THE FLOWER. 193 



plants are, by their own powers, enabled to effect the 

 impregnation of then- seed ; but where there is any 

 more than ordinar}' difficulty, theu' all-pro^ddent 

 Creator has invariably provided efficient assistance. 

 The agents usually called in are insects : these, in 

 their search after honey and wax, visit the inmost re- 

 cesses of flowers, and bear from the anthers to the 

 stigma, and from flower to flower, the fecmidating 

 dust. Here, too, I may remai'k upon another in- 

 stance of that Providence, which makes all things 

 fitting and appropriate ; for those who have made the 

 bee their study relate, that though this insect does 

 not confine itself to one species of flower, yet it re- 

 stricts its visits dming each ramble to that kind 

 which it first ^'isits. How this facilitates impregna- 

 tion is obvious, when it is remembered, that no 

 flower can be fecundated but with pollen from a 

 kindred species. 



The most remarkable instance of the agency of in- 

 sects, and of the aitifice, if the tenn be permissible, 

 employed to render them efficiently semceable, oc- 

 curs in the Aristolochia Clematitis ; and is thus de- 

 scribed by Willdenow^ The corolla is tubular, ter- 

 minating in a globiilai' extension at the base. The 

 tubular part is lined with stiff hairs, pointing down- 

 wards, like the wii*e entrances to some mouse-traps. 

 The globular part contains the pistils, surrounded by 

 the stamens ; but the latter bemg veiy much the 



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