232 



For the American Bee Journal. 



Where Honey Comes From— No. 3. 



WM. TKEEEASE. 



If a .flower be taken from a single hy- 

 acinth — a double flower would not do so 

 well, because the artificial doubling has 

 transformed some or all of the essential 

 organs into petals — and the floral envel- 

 opes (a) removed from one side as is 

 shown in Fig. 6, the pistil (o) will be 

 seen occupying the center of the flower, 

 and around this the stamens (b). A 

 glance at the pistil shows it to be made 

 up of an egg-shaped ovary, creased 

 longitudinally with 6 equi-distant lines, 

 and surmounted by 3 styles. Three of 

 the grooves mentioned occupy the mid- 

 dle of the walls of 3 cells into which the 

 ovary is partly divided by partitions 

 (Fig. 8) ; and the other three, which are 

 deeper, correspond to these partitions. 

 At or near the top of the ovary, on each 



Fig. 6.— Flower of the hyacinth, with the nearer half 

 of the perianth removed— natural size. 



In all of the figures a indicates the perianth ; b, the 

 stamens ; d, the gland cavity ; e, the flower stalk ; f, 

 the ovules : o, the ovary ; s, the style ; 1, the epider- 

 mis of the gland cavity ; 2, that of the outside of the 

 ovary. 



of the last mentioned grooves will be 

 found a glistening drop of fluid, sweet 

 to the taste. Two of these drops are in- 

 dicated in Fig. 6. The presence of these 

 drops has been observed from time to 

 time for many years, and even Linnaeus 

 saw them and knew that they were nec- 

 tar. But no study of the glands which 

 secrete this fluid appears to have been 

 made, till 18.54, when they were briefly 

 described by a Frenchman, M. Brong- 

 niart. Notwithstanding this descrip- 

 tion, even in the last year the glandular 

 tissue has been wrongly described as 

 disseminated in the ovary, by one of the 

 highest authorities on the relations be- 

 tween flow r ers and insects. 



With a sharp razor the ovary may be 

 cut from top to bottom in such a way 

 that the section shall pass through the 

 middle of a cell and the middle of the 

 opposite partition. Such a section is 

 shown, enlarged 11 diameters, in Fig. 7. 

 The cell of the ovary is partly tilled by 

 the ovules or young seeds (f ), and a 

 narrow pocket (d) is found extending 

 down a short distance from the point 

 where the drop of nectar was seen, into 



the tissue of the septum or partition. 

 This is one of the nectar glands, and is 

 a so-called septal gland of the ovary. A 

 thin section across the ovary near its 

 top, shows all three of the glands as very 

 small crevices in the septal tissue. Such 

 a section, at the point xy of Fig. 7, is 

 shown in Fig. 8, where it is enlarged 17 

 diameters. The gland tissue, which 

 differs very little from that surrounding 

 it, is indicated by the figure 1. 



Septal glands similar to, though much 

 larger than those of the hyacinth, are 

 found in the ovaries of many lily-like 

 flowers, such as the Canna, or Indian 

 shot, the Amaryllis, the squill, or wild 

 hyacinth, the onion, and many others 

 which need not be mentioned. In the 



Fig. 7.— Vertical section through a septum of the 

 ovary— magnified eleven diameters. 



hyacinth, the gland is little more than 

 a slight deepening of the furrow be- 

 tween the two halves of a septum, and 

 is wider at its mouth than at any other 

 point. In other cases, the gland cavity 

 is of equal width throughout ; in others 

 it preserves the nature of a simple pock- 

 et, but is much enlarged below, and 

 passes its secretion to the surface 

 through a contracted portion often of 

 considerable length, and then forming 

 a true duct ; and in still others the pouch 

 is relatively very large, and its walls are 

 folded into longitudinal and transverse 

 ridges, thus largely increasing the 

 secreting surface. In these latter in- 

 stances, the gland is quite comparable 

 to one of the simpler racemose glands 

 of animals. Every septal gland may be 

 considered as a cavity such as might be 

 formed in a clay model of the ovary by 



