260 FERTILISATION 



grandiflorus) the honey is so placed that the bee invariably 

 alights on that one side of the flower towards which the spiral 

 pistil is protruded (bringing out with it pollen), and by the 

 depression of the wing-petal is forced against the bee's side 

 11 dusted with pollen.* In the broom the pistil is rubbed on 

 the centre of the back of the bee. I suspect there is some- 

 thing to be made out about the Leguminosae, which will 

 bring the case within our theory ; though I have failed to do 

 so. Our theory will explain why in the vegetable and ani- 

 mal kingdom the act of fertilisation even in hermaphrodites 

 usually takes place sub-jove, though thus exposed to great 

 injury from damp and rain. In animals which cannot 

 be [fertilised] by insects or wind, there is no case^ of land- 

 animals being hermaphrodite without the concourse of two 

 individuals." 



A letter to Dr. Asa Gray (Sept. 5th, 1857) gives the sub- 

 stance of the paper in the Gardeners Chronicle : 



" Lately I was led to examine buds of kidney bean with 

 the pollen shed ; but I was led to believe that the pollen could 

 hardly get on the stigma by wind or otherwise, except by 

 bees visiting [the flower] and moving the wing petals : hence 

 I included a small bunch of flowers in two bottles in every 

 way treated the same : the flowers in one I daily just 

 momentarily moved, as if by a bee ; these set three fine 

 pods, the other not one. Of course this little experiment 

 must be tried again, and this year in England it is too late, 

 as the flowers seem now seldom to set. If bees are neces- 

 sary to this flower's self-fertilisation, bees must almost cross 

 them, as their dusted right-side of head and right legs 

 constantly touch the stigma. 



" I have, also, lately been re-observing daily Lobelia fulgens 

 this in my garden is never visited by insects, and never sets 



* If you will look at a bed of alone are all scratched by the tarsi 

 scarlet kidney beans you will find of the bees. [Note in the original 

 that the wing-petals on the left side letter by C. Darwin.] 



