98 FLOWERS OF THE FIELD AND FOREST. 



by means of insects, and for the purpose of further securing 

 their help in the act of pollenization. That insects have some- 

 thing important to do with the showy dress of the flower may 

 be inferred on general grounds from the fact that such plants 

 as depend upon the wind to carry their pollen from anther to 

 stigma, like the pines and other cone-bearing trees, the grasses, 

 and notably our Indian corn, have no colored flower at all ; 

 while the plants that manifestly seek, or at all events are ben- 

 efited by, the help of insects in pollenization are furnished by 

 nature with floral appendages more or less showy and attractive. 



I do not want to be understood to say that the insect comes 

 to the flower because he admires the brilliant colors of its petals, 

 but because he finds a toothsome drop of nectar in its cup or in 

 its tender surface-cells. The color of the flower is but a sign to 

 advertise him where a good dinner may be had for the taking. 

 It may be assumed that even in apetalous flowers he has al- 

 ready got a taste of nature's sweets. Then any change, however 

 slight, of stamens into petaloid shapes, with ever so little addition 

 of color, would be an advantage in the struggle for existence, to 

 any flower possessing it, an advantage likely to be transmitted 

 and to be improved upon as the generations went by. 



At first, the flowers would be yellow, the petals being only 

 slightly modified stamens, which are usually of that color. A still 

 further development would produce white, red or pink, and last of 

 all, purple, blue, and violet flowers. We infer that this was the 

 order of the evolution of color in flowers, for two reasons : The 

 first is, because we find a correlation between the flowers of certain 

 colors, and insects of certain degrees of development in respect to 

 their honey-gathering function. Mr. Grant Allen, an English 



