WHITE AND GREENISH FLOWERS 



" The transition from wind-fertilization to insect-fertilization and 

 the first traces of adaptation to insects ; could only be due to the influence 

 of quite short-lipped insects with feebly developed color sense. The most 

 primitive flowers are therefore for the most part simple, widely open, reg- 

 ular, devoid of nectar or with their nectar unconcealed and easily accessible, 

 and greenish, white, or yellow in color. . . . Lepidoptera, by the 

 thinness, sometimes by the length, of their tongues, were able to produce 

 special modifications. Through their agency were developed flowers with 

 long and narrow tubes, whose colors and time of opening were in relation 

 to the tastes and habits of their visitors" HERMANN MCJLLER. 



' ' Of all colors, white is the prevailing one ; and of white flowers a 

 considerably larger proportion smell sweetly than of any other color, 

 namely, 14.6 per cent. ; of red only 8.2 per cent, are odoriferous. The 

 fact of a large proportion of white flowers smelling sweetly may depend in 

 part on those which are fertilized by moths requiring the double aid of con- 

 spicuousness in the dusk and of odor. So great is the economy of Nature, 

 that most flowers which are fertilized by crepuscular or nocturnal insects 

 emit their odor chiefly or exclusively in the evening. ' * CHARLES DARWIN. 



