LUPINE; ALFALFA AND BUR-CLOVER 



filaments ; as the weight of the bee presses down on the 

 keel, the stiff stamens push up the pollen and force it 

 through the opening at the tip. So the lupine lets its 

 guests pump out pollen. The bees seem to appreciate the 

 pollen very much, for, in spite of the fact that the lupines 

 provide no honey, the larger and more fragrant kinds are 

 much visited by bees. It is most entertaining to watch 

 them stow away the pollen in their baskets as they pump 

 it out. Hive bees can visit about twelve flowers per minute, 

 but a great bumble-bee can pump out and pack away the 

 pollen of thirty-five flowers in the same time. Since bees 

 are so swift and industrious, do you wonder that many 

 flowers favor them for guests ? Perhaps this is why most 

 of our lupines have attained the bees' favorite color, blue. 

 Of course you can see that at every visit the bee first strikes 

 the % stigma, which is mature in the older flowers; that is, he 

 cross pollinates the flowers. 



The lupines have also a mechanical device for scattering 

 seed, a device that is used by other members of the pea 

 family. The fruit, 3^ou see, is a kind of a pod ; it is called 

 a legume, and since all members of this family have the 

 fruit, a legume, the L,atin"name of the family is I,egumi- 

 nosse. The legume of the lupine has along its edges an 

 elastic tissue that causes the two parts, when separated, to 

 coil and twist back with considerable force, so scattering 

 the seeds. 



The alfalfa is a member of the family Leguminosae. You 

 will recognise the family likeness at once when you look 

 at the flowers, for they have banner, wings and keel, as 

 the lupines have. The alfalfa is a European plant, intro- 

 duced here by way of Mexico and Chili. It is a great 

 boon to our western country, where the upper layers of 

 soil become so dry during the rainless months, for the 

 alfalfa roots will grow down a considerable distance to find 

 a moist subsoil; we sometimes find it growing in waste 

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