232 



THE FLOWER 



grance only after sunset. A nodding position is assumed 

 by many flowers at night or during a shower to keep the 

 pollen from being inj ured by rain and dew. 



458 459 



458, 459. A bell flower: 458, position in daylight; 459, position at night, 

 or during wet weather. 



336. Fraud and Robbery. The secretion of honey by 

 flowers is a very common means of attracting insect visit- 

 ors. In general, plants that have very long, 

 tubular corollas, like the trumpet honeysuckle 

 (Lonicera sempervirens], and trumpet vine, 

 are reserving their sweets for humming birds 

 and long-tongued moths and butterflies. 

 Acleisanthes, a plant of the four-o'clock 

 family that grows along our Mexican border 

 (Fig. 460), has a tube from twelve to four- 

 teen centimeters long (about five and one 

 half inches). Yet even deeper corollas than 

 this can be explored by a humming bird of 

 South America, which has a bill that some- 

 times reaches the length of fifteen centi- 

 4 oo.-Tubu- meters (about six inches), and a tongue that 

 lar blossom of can b e protruded nearly as far again (Fig. 



Acleisanthes l 



4oi). It is not uncommon, however, to find 



