338 Field, Forest, and Wayside Flowers 



have portrayed this wayside weed on their 

 escutcheons. 



The thistle is a member of the great composite 

 family and its bloom is a mass of flowers set very 

 close together. They are purple to please the bees, 

 for purple and blue are the colors which those busy 

 little insects love best, and they are rich in nectar. 

 In most sorts the tube of each floret is so long 

 and narrow that crawlers find it difficult to get in 

 after the nectar, and winged insects with short pro- 

 boscides cannot reach it either. Nature means to 

 save it, if she can, for the butterflies and bees. 



But the little Canada thistle has flower-tubes 

 shorter than those of other species, and hence its 

 nectar can be drained by insects of many varieties. 

 The honey rises into the throat of the flower, so 

 as to be accessible even to insects with very short 

 tongues, and hence it is visited by a large number 

 of species. Miiller records no fewer than eighty- 

 eight. 



The mechanism of the florets is like that in the 

 dandelion. The long anthers are united into a 

 tube, which closely surrounds the pistil, and the 

 pollen is shed into this tube. The pollen-grains 

 are covered with little points, so that they cling 

 together, and the whole mass of them is pushed 



