THE CARDINAL-FLOWER. 141 



According to Prof. Goodale, however, " the Cardinal-flower has 

 so long and narrow a corolla-tube that bees arc unable to reach 

 its nectar, which is, moreover, so watery that they do not in this 

 case resort to their frequent expedient of biting through the corolla 

 to get at it. They are replaced by our beautiful ruby-throated 

 humming-bird, which may be seen when the plants are plentiful, 

 gracefully posing itself before one flower after another, while its 

 tongue deftly explores them and removes their sugared stores ; 

 but in doing this the bird is continually receiving pollen from 

 the anthers of young flowers and leaving it on the expanded 

 stigmas of those which are older. This is one of the very few 

 cases in which our native flowers are adapted to fertilization by 

 humming-birds ; but in tropical America, where these birds are 

 abundant, many flowers are exclusively cross-fertilized by them. 

 Such flowers are sometimes spoken of as ornithophilous, or bird- 

 loving. 



For most of the following facts concerning the origin of the 

 popular and scientific names of the Cardinal-flower and its history, 

 I am indebted to Prof. Meehan's " Native Flowers and Ferns of 

 the United States." The generic name was given to it more than 

 a century and a half ago by Plumier, who was an ingenious 

 Frenchman, noted for his discoveries among American plants, in 

 honor of Mathias de 1'Obel, a famous Flemish botanist of the 

 sixteenth century. Lobel, according to all accounts, was a remark- 

 able man. He was born in Lisle, Flanders, in 1538, and died in 

 London in 1616; was graduated in medicine in Montpelier, prac- 

 tised at Antwerp, became physician to the Prince of Orange, settled 

 in England about 1570, though it appears that he had lived there 

 for a time during early life, and served as gardener to the Earl of 



