Special Structure. 145 



tiny cup of honey, carefully covered, but the cover 

 so thin in three places that the proboscis of the bee 

 pierces it with ease. While gathering the sweets 

 of the staminate flower, she becomes covered with the 

 pollen dust, because the stamens are so placed in 

 the narrow tube of the ilower that she cannot steal 

 away the s\\xv eted there without loading 



herself with the fertilizing powder. When now she 

 lights in the pistillate flower, she takes its honey ; 

 but in her eagerness, scatters from her wings and 

 body the pollen grains upon the pistil, and thus 



ires the growth of the fruit. 



When we examine the structure of these flowers, 

 their relation to the ' the Uv, and consider 



the fact that the honey, of no use directly to the 

 plant, but a draft upon its energies, is ready to 

 attract the bee when the pollen is fit for distribu- 

 tion, we see a provision for the welfare of the flower 

 of such a nature as to secure the enjoyment of a 

 sentient being. The bee is not only provided for 

 by following her instinct, but the following of her 

 instinct is essential to the plant. They were both 

 fashioned with reference to each other. In our 

 pretty spring flower, the forget-me-not (Oldcnlan- 

 ilin arnilca), we find a curious relation of the seed- 

 producing organs. The stamens are always either 

 much longer or much shorter than the pistil. When 

 the bee visits a flower with long stamens the pollen 

 is attached to the base of the proboscis ; when he 

 visits a flower with long pistil, this pollen comes in 

 :ontact with its stigma, and at the same time the 



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