312 Field, Forest, and Wayside Flowers 



pollen-masses. A bee will gather several of these 

 at once, and I have seen one buzzing away from 

 a head of milkweed loaded with no fewer than 

 nine. Thus encumbered she was for a moment 

 held prisoner by the flower, unable to pull herself 

 loose. Following the ancient custom of the bees, 

 she carried the pollen-masses at once to another 

 milkweed plant, and perched upon one of its 

 flowers, in the same position in which she had 

 stood when visiting the first. This brought some 

 of the pollen-masses on her feet exactly opposite 

 the slits running through the stamen-ring to the 

 pistil. 



The pollen-masses, when they are first extracted, 

 stand wide apart. But as the insect flies through 

 the air with them they dry somewhat, and in dry- 

 ing they droop so close together that they can both 

 be introduced into the lower and wider part of 

 the stamen-slit of another flower (Figs. 87, e and/). 

 When the insect literally tears itself away from 

 this second flower it snaps the cords which binds 

 the pollen-masses to the little black disk. The 

 disk still clings to the insect's foot as a souvenir of 

 its visit to the first milkweed blossom, but the 

 pollen-masses are left behind pressed close to the 

 little green pistils of milkweed blossom number two. 



