SECT. I. ACCESS OF THE POLLEN. 353 



honey in the flower to tempt the taste of insects, 

 but seems to have furnished also the means of at- 

 tracting even the eye. This is thought to be done Or colour, 

 by mean* of the coloured spots with which many 

 flowers secreting a honied fluid are marked, which 

 Spregnel calls macula indicantes, as indicating the 

 treasure that is contained in the flower, and thus 

 attracting the attention of the insect. But the 

 very figure of the flower seems often intended to 

 produce the same effect. Spregnel has enumerated Or figure 

 several hundreds of flowers which in their figure as flower, 

 well as colour resemble insects, and hence attract 

 the notice of the plunderers of their honied stores. 

 The beautiful example of the Bee Orchis is known 

 to almost every body. 



Such then are the means by which the notice of InHerma- 

 the insect is attracted ; and such also is the struc- p J 

 ture of the internal parts of the flower, that it must 

 of necessity pass across the stamens and pistils in 

 procuring the honey it is in quest of, which passage 

 is often a work of considerable difficulty, particu- 

 larly when the tubular part of the corolla is beset 

 with hairs, as in many flowers of the class Pentan- 

 drla arid Didynamia. But one of the most difficult 

 and singular cases of Hermaphrodite impregnation 

 as aided by the agency of insects is that of the 

 Aristolochia Clematitis. The corolla of this flower, 

 tvhich is tubular, but terminating upwards in a 

 ligulate limb, is inflated into a globular figure at 

 the base. The tubular part is internally beset with 



VOL. II. 2 A 



