JULY FLOWERS. 113 



sufficiently protected by their forest of tiny bristles, 

 secrete little or no honey. Probably they are now in 

 course of acquiring the habit of doing without it. 



The immense variety of adaptation to external circum- 

 stances in the same family, indeed, is nowhere more con- 

 spicuously seen than in our English peaflowers. Funda- 

 mentally, they are all so like one another that even the 

 most unlearned eye at once admits their relationship ; 

 for who cannot recognize the close similarity between 

 peas and beans, gorse and broom, vetch and clover ? 

 Yet almost all of them, while retaining at bottom the 

 fundamental ancestral traits, have hit out the most 

 diverse plans for accommodating themselves to their 

 own particular circumstances. For example, there are 

 four July pea-blossoms now in flower which have four 

 distinct and separate types or methods for insuring insect 

 fertilization. In this bright yellow lotus, that covers all 

 the bank with its clustered masses of gold, the pressure 

 of the bee pumps out the pollen through a small aper- 

 ture at the top against his breast. In the broom and 

 gorse, his weight makes the whole flower burst open 

 elastically, and dusts him from head to foot with the 

 fertilizing grains. In the clovers, the stamens are 

 pushed bodily against the insect's bosom so as to shed 

 their store upon his legs. Last of all, in the peas and 

 vetches the pollen is swept out as he lights, by a brush 

 of haire on the surface of the pistil. 



Each of these main types assumes specialized minor 

 forms in the various genera and species, according as 

 they have peculiarly adapted themselves to hive -bees or 

 humble-bees, to flies or to beetles. It is much the same 

 with their fruits or pods. This vetch here, as we all 

 know, is largely grown for fodder, because of its rich 

 pea-like seeds, well stored with starches and albumens 



