Yellow and Orange 



The Smooth False Foxglove (D. Virginica) — G. quercifolia 

 of Gray — which delights in rich woods, moist or dry, bears 

 similar, but slightly larger, blossoms on a smooth, usually 

 branched, and taller stem, whose lower leaves especially are 

 much cleft (pinnatifid). This species is commoner South and 

 West, blooming from July to September. All the foxgloves 

 elevate their sticky stigmas to the mouth of their tubes, that the 

 pollen-dusted bumblebee may leave some of the vitalizing dust 

 brought from another flower on its surface before she turns up- 

 side "down and enters in this unusual fashion to receive a fresh 

 supply on her way to the nectar in the base of the tube. Her 

 pressure against the pointed anther-tips causes the light, dry pol- 

 len to sift out; on the removal of her piessure the gaping chinks 

 close to save it from small bees and flies. It falls out, therefore, 

 only when the bee is in the right position to receive it for export 

 to another foxglove's stigma. Hairy footholds on anthers and 

 filaments are provided lest the bee fall while reversed and sifting 

 out the pollen. 



The Fern-leaved or Lousewort False Foxglove (D. pedicula- 

 ria) — G pedicularia of Gray — a very leafy species found in dry 

 woods and thickets from the Mississippi and Ontario eastward to 

 the Atlantic, north and south, has all its leaves once or twice pin- 

 natifid, the lobes much cut and toothed. It is a rather sticky, 

 hairy, slender, and much-branched plant, growing from one to four 

 feet tall; the broad, trumpet-shaped, yellow flower, which is sticky 

 outside, measures an inch or an inch and a half long, and is some- 

 times almost as wide across. "The most abundant visitor, and 

 the one for which the flower is most perfectly adapted," says 

 Professor Robertson, "xsBombusAmericanorum. This bee always 

 turns head downwards on entering the flower. When it enters, 

 or backs out, the basal joints of its legs strike the tips of the an- 

 ther-cells, when the pollen falls out. 1 had often wondered why 

 this bee turned upside down to enter the flower. . . . I discov- 

 ered that the form of the flower requires it. The modification 

 which requires the bees to reverse is associated with the peculiar 

 mode of pollen discharge. Smaller bumblebees and some other 

 bees which never or rarely try to suck hang under the anthers 

 and work out the pollen by striking the trigger-like awns. They 

 reverse of their own accord, since they are so small they are not 

 compelled to do so on account of the form of the flower. The tube 

 is large ... so that most bumblebee workers could easily 

 reach the nectar if the tube were not curved in the opposite direc- 

 tion from that of most flowers, and if the anthers did not obstruct 

 the entrance." Sometimes small bees, despairing of getting into 

 the tube through the mouth, suck at holes in the flower's sides, be- 

 cause legitimate feasting was made too difficult for the poor little 

 things. The ruby-throated humming bird, hovering a second 



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