10 Wild Flowers East of the Rockies 



while feeding on the flowers. He also discovered 

 that the corolla, often brightly colored, was for the 

 purpose of attracting insects and the nectar was for 

 their food; fragrance also was a factor in drawing 

 about the useful insects and, often, lines on the cor- 

 olla or petals directed the visitor to the supply of 

 food at the base. 



It remained for the great Darwin to discover the 

 exact truth about the many complicated methods of 

 fertilization. Whereas Sprengel had supposed in- 

 sects simply transferred pollen from the anther to 

 the stigma on the same flower, Darwin claimed that 

 it was of vital importance that the pollen from one 

 blossom should be left at the stigma of a different 

 one, and that many flowers were so constructed that 

 they were incapable of being fertilized by their own 

 pollen. 



Nature's plan is to disperse families in order to pre- 

 vent interbreeding, the continuance of which de- 

 creases vitality. All plants are slowly developing 

 schemes for insuring cross-fertilization. Many flow- 

 ers now are self-pollenized, but all first offer the op- 

 portunity to insects of various kinds to perform that 

 office for them, and flowers so cross-pollenized will 

 be stronger and healthier than the others. In ages 

 to come, we may expect that, through the gradual 

 elimination of the weaker, all species will be in- 

 capable of self-pollenization. 



Methods for the preventing of self-pollenization are 

 numerous and varied. The simplest is in having the 

 anthers or stigma mature, one before the other. Many 

 ingenious devices locate these members where they 

 may not come in contact with one another, and so 

 that an incoming insect will first touch the stigma 

 and then, as he is departing, be showered with or 



