THE WORK OF FLOWERS 307 



be found in Kerner and Oliver's " Natural History of 

 Plants," Vol.11. See also Miiller, "Fertilization of 

 Flowers"; Weed, "Ten New England Blossoms"; New- 

 ell, "Outlines of Lessons in Botany"; Gibson, "Sharp 

 Eyes" and other books; Lubbock, "British Wild Flow- 

 ers"; Darwin, "The Various Contrivances by which 

 Orchids are Fertilized by Insects." 



The peculiar shapes of flowers are usually adapta- 

 tions to the visits of insects, either for the purpose of 

 securing cross -pollination or covering the insects with 

 pollen, or affording platforms on which they may alight, 

 such as the lower lip of the Sage (Fig. 169) . See also 

 Iris (Fig. 167) and examine the Pea, etc. It is an in- 

 teresting experiment to watch how the bee alights on 

 the flower; and, when this is ascertained, carefully cut 

 away the platform or other support, and notice the 

 subsequent behavior of the bees. 



In such flowers as the Pea and Sage, it is quite evi- 

 dent that the position of the flower is of importance. If 

 it should accidentally be turned upside down and w^ere 

 unable to right itself, the platform would be out of 

 place and the devices for loading the insect with pollen 

 would not operate; the same is true of a great many 

 other flowers. Moreover, we notice that in many cases 

 the old and the young flowers assume different posi- 

 tions, as in the Clover, Poppy, Strawberry, Labur- 

 num, Geranium, Honeysuckle, etc. ; the general effect 

 of this is to get the young flowers which are not yet 



