From Blue to Purple 



it grows to perfection, especially in mountainous regions. From 

 Canada to Florida and westward to Missouri is its range, and be- 

 ginning to bloom in August southward, it may not be found until 

 September in the Catskills, and in October it is still in its glory in 

 Ontario. The colorless, bitter juice of many of the gentian tribe 

 has long been valued as a tonic in medicine. Evidently the but- 

 terflies that pilfer this "ague-weed," and the bees that are its 

 legitimate feasters, find something more delectable in its blue walls. 



A deep, intense blue is the Closed, Blind, or Bottle Gentian 

 (G. Andrewsii), more truly the color of the " male bluebird's 

 back," to which Thoreau likened the paler fringed gentian. 

 Rarely some degenerate plant bears white flowers. As it is a 

 perennial, we are likely to find it in its old haunts year after year ; 

 nevertheless its winged seeds sail far abroad to seek pastures 

 new. This gentian also shows a preference for moist soil. 

 Gray thought that it expanded slightly, and for a short time only 

 in sunshine, but added that, although it is proterandrous, i.e. it 

 matures and sheds its pollen before its stigma is susceptible to 

 any, he believed it finally fertilized itself by the lobes of the 

 stigma curling backward until they touched the anthers. But 

 Gray was doubtless mistaken. Several authorities have recently 

 proved that the flower is adapted to bumblebees. It offers them 

 the last feast of the season, for although it comes into bloom in 

 August southward, farther northward — and it extends from 

 Quebec to the Northwest Territory — it lasts through October. 



Now, how can a bumblebee enter this inhospitable-looking 

 flower ? If he did but know it, it keeps closed for his special 

 benefit, having no fringes or hairs to entangle the feet of crawling 

 pilferers, and no better way of protecting its nectar from rain and 

 marauding butterflies that are not adapted to its needs. But he is 

 a powerful fellow. Watch him alight on a cluster of blossoms, 

 select the younger, nectar-bearing ones, that are distinctly marked 

 white against a light-blue background at the mouth of the corolla 

 for his special guidance. Old flowers from which the nectar 

 has been removed turn deep reddish purple, and the white path- 

 finders become indistinct. With some difficulty, it is true, the 

 bumblebee (B. Americanorum) thrusts his tongue through the 

 valve of the chosen flower where the five plaited lobes overlap 

 one another; then he pushes with all his might until his head hav- 

 ing passed the entrance most of his body follows, leaving only his 

 hind legs and the tip of his abdomen sticking out as he makes the 

 circuit. He has much sense as well as muscle, and does not risk 

 imprisonment in what must prove a tomb by a total and unneces- 

 sary disappearance within the bottle. Presently he backs out, 

 brushes the pollen from his head and thorax into his baskets, and 

 is off to fertilize an older, stigmatic flower with the few grains of 

 quickening dust that must remain on his velvety head. 



34 



