The Ruby-throat's Caterers 



producing cleistogamous flowers there to one having 

 the showy blossoms. Since there are no humming- 

 birds in Europe, why should the jewel-weed waste 

 its energies ? Bumble-bees can be its only benefac- 

 tors there and they are not worth such expenditure. 



Glowing scarlet heads of Oswego tea, bee balm 

 or Indian plume, as it is variously called, prove to 

 be next of kin to the scarlet salvia of our gardens, 

 which comes from the tropics and which is there, 

 as here, fertilized by the humming-bird. Certainly, 

 the Indian plume's colour, form, mechanism and 

 blooming season (from July to September) are as 

 perfectly adapted as the salvia's to the ruby-throat, a 

 constant visitor. Even the flower's protruding 

 stamens, and quite frequently the bracts and upper 

 leaves, wear his favourite colour. Where the Indian 

 plume rears its rounded heads fringed with irreg- 

 ularly slender tubes beside a mountain stream, only 

 the cardinal flower can vie with it in splendor. 



Everyone who has a trumpet creeper on the 

 walls of his home knows how irresistibly attractive 

 to the ruby-throat are its clusters of large, tawny 

 red tubes outstretched to hail him. Occasionally 

 the vine escapes from our gardens at the North, but 

 from New Jersey to Illinois and southward to the 

 Gulf it grows wild in Nature's garden, blooming in 

 August and September. Flashing, whirring, darting 

 about the gorgeous flowers, their guest feasts with 

 perfect satisfaction for do they not offer all he 

 desires ? 



Why should the exquisite cardinal flower deck 

 itself in incomparable red while its twin sister, the 

 great lobelia and its lesser kin wear blue ? Watch 



35 



