FLOWERS 



203 





The pollen of very many plants, however, is carried 



about by humming birds, bees and other insects. As 



the bee crawls into the flower to get the 



nectar at the bottom, it brushes against 



the anther and some of the pollen grains 



become attached to it. These, later, are 



rubbed off by the rough or sticky stigma 



of another flower which the bee has en- 



tered and thus the flower is fertilized. 



The humming bird, by reaching its long 



slender beak down into the long narrow 



tube formed by the corolla of the u wild 



honeysuckle " (Fig. 98), brushes upon 



the stigma the pollen grains it lias ob- 



tained from, another flower and thus dis- 



tributes pollen from flower to flower. 



In no other way could these plants be fertilized. 

 The beautiful colors of flowers and the sweet nectars 



that many of them secrete are the adaptations of the plant 



for enticing insects to enter them and bring to their 



stigma the pollen from other flowers, or take from their 



anthers pollen needed to fertilize another similar plant. 

 Some flowers are so constructed that only certain insects 



can fertilize them, the wild honeysuckle requires the hum- 

 ming bird, the red clover the bumble-bee 

 (Fig. 99) and other plants, other kinds of in- 

 sects. Flowers of some varieties of plants 

 cannot be fertilized by flowers of a like 

 variety. Certain varieties of strawberries, 



for example, need to have other varieties planted near 



them, if they are to prosper. Some plants need not only 



to have other varieties planted near, but they also require 



the presence of special insects. 



One of the most striking examples of this is the Smyrna 





