BEES AS BUILDERS OF FLOWERS 



If you inquire why bee-flowers are so often blue, I shall be 

 compelled to admit that I do not know with certainty. It is 

 a problem which still awaits further study. Some naturalists 

 have said that bees 

 prefer blue to every 

 other color, while 

 others claim that it is 

 merely an incidental 

 result correlated with 

 the higher specializa- 

 tion of the flower. 

 For example, i:i the 

 animal kingdom, white 

 cats (if they have blue 

 eyes) are nearly always 

 deaf, but no one knows 

 why. 



Bee-flowers are usu- 

 ally marked with spots 

 or lines called "nectar- 

 guides," which point 

 out the way to the nec- 

 tar. (Fig. 34.) In the 

 snapdragon the pal- 

 ate is yellow; in the 

 pickerel-weed there 

 are two bright-yellow 

 spots on the middle 



lobe of the upper lip; in the turtle-head the white corolla has 

 reddish lips. The flower of the hedge-nettle (Stachys erecta) is 

 yellowish white, with the border of the upper lip marked with 

 two purple stripes and the lower lip purple-spotted. The flower 



65 



Fig. 31. 



Pink-Fringed Polygala. 

 paurifolia 



Polygala 



A bee-flower. 



The crest, or fringe, is well shown in the 

 photograph 



