78 



FIRST LESSONS WITH PLANTS 



also crowd into the tubes. Bumble-bees often bite open the nec- 

 taries and steal the honey from the outside; this kind of theft is 

 not infrequent in other flowers. 



98. The pupil should 

 now examine any of 

 the buttercups, or 

 crowfoots. The com- 

 mon one in the East 

 is shown in Fig. 71. 

 If the petals are pulled 

 away, each one is seen to 

 bear a minute gland or lip 

 (b) at its base. This is 

 the nectary. The disk- like 

 base of the common grape 

 flower is also a nectary. As 

 a rule, entomophilous flowers 

 bear nectaries, or nectar- bear- 

 ing glands, and they are usu- 

 ally located in the very base 

 or bottom of the flower. 



SUGGESTIONS. The pupil should now 



Flowers of common i oo k for the nectaries in all flowers 



buttercup. which he suspects to be insect-polli- 



nated. The presence of spurs and 



sacs, and also of glands, is presumptive evidence of nectaries. 

 The presence of insects about flowers always raises the presump- 

 tion that those flowers are entomophilous ; the pupil should, there- 

 fore, determine what visitors the common flowers may have, 



