CALIFORNIA PLANTS IN THEIR HOMES 



honey quite too deep for bees, but there is no doubt that its 

 gorgeous color attracts the most desirable of all guests, the 

 humming birds. Now look at the stamens. Each flower 

 has many of them, but only a few are shedding pollen at 

 any given time ; note just where these stand and imagine 

 what happens when the bee, resting on the platform, or the 

 bird, rising from below, reaches over to get the honey. 

 For mature stigmas, look in the oldest flowers. Where do 

 they stand ? It is easy to see what results to these older 

 flowers every time they are visited by guests from the 

 younger ones. 



There are summer flowers, less showy than the lark- 

 spurs, that are able to trust entirely to their guests for pol- 

 lination. Probably the most interesting of all these is the 

 milkweed. The milkweed in the picture is common in 

 Southern California. Its very milky juice, also supposed to 

 be poisonous, and its extreme woolliness, protect it well 

 from grazing animals and from drought. It flourishes in 

 many waste places, sometimes to the annoyance of bee- 

 keepers, as we shall see. The flowers of this milkweed are 

 massed in rather large clusters, but they are not highly 

 colored. Unless you look closely, you will not find the 

 sepals at all, and the whitish petals turn back close to the 

 stem, as if determined to be of no use to guests. But there 

 are five hood-like cups for honey, which are more or less 

 deeply rose tinted ; they are conspicuous, and have a goodly 

 amount of honey. 



The stamens and pistils are very queer indeed, but it 

 pays to make them out. Tear away sepals, petals and 

 honey cups. What is left looks like No. 2 in the picture, 

 but is much smaller. Now explore this with a pin, and you 

 will soon find that there are five narrow openings, or slits, 

 with stiff, projecting edges. When a bee or a fly or a but- 

 terfly comes for milkweed honey he clings to this central 

 part of the flower, since he cannot alight on the petals. 



186 



