THE CLOVER BLOOMS. 79 



ing white kind, to look into them a little more closely. 

 First, let us begin upon the more normal red form. It 

 is made up of some thirty or forty tiny purplish pea- 

 flowers, each with a little red hairy calyx of its own ; 

 the whole set of hairs mingling together below so as to 

 form a perfect miniature forest, through which no thiev- 

 ing ant can possibly force his way to the honey store. 

 Nothing bothers ants like hairs ; and Sir John Lubbock 

 found that they could not climb up on to a table or safe 

 if only a little fur was gummed around its legs. But 

 though the florets of the clover are essentially pea-flowers, 

 they are not pea- flowers of the common and ordinary 

 type. They do not consist, like the blossoms of the 

 garden-pea or the laburnum, of four distinct and separate 

 petals : all their parts have grown together at the base by 

 the claws, so as to form a single deep and narrow tube. 

 That makes them such favorites with the bees ; while, 

 conversely, it is the constant selective action of the bees 

 which has enabled them to assume this specialized form. 

 The most tubular blossoms are those the bee always 

 chooses by preference ; and when the tube is so deep 

 and narrow as it is in red clover, the bee knows that no 

 other insect can reach the nectar but himself, and so 

 feels sure of obtaining a guaranteed drop of honey as the 

 reward for his services. At the same time, as the 

 stamens have also coalesced with the petal tube, he can- 

 not fail to fertilize the head while helping himself to the 

 honey. This makes red clover a very successful plant, 

 as you can easily see by looking about you in the fields 

 anywhere. It also makes it good fodder ; for as each 

 flower has a pod with only one big bean or seed inside 

 it, the whole head contains a large number of beans, 

 rich in starches and gluten as foodstuffs. It is always the 

 seeds that are the most useful for food ; not the mere 



