130 



PRACTICAL BOTANY 



122. Bird-pollinated and snail-pollinated flowers. Although 

 by far the greater part of the pollination done by animals is 

 due to insects, birds also perform this office for many flowers. 

 Those which are most efficient in this work are the sunbirds 

 of Asia, Africa, and other hot countries, and our own humming 

 birds. Most bird-pollinated flowers are large and showy, many 

 of them scarlet or deep orange in color. Among the most famil- 

 iar of our wild 

 flowers much 

 visited by hum- 

 ming birds are 

 the wild balsam 

 or jewelweed 

 (Fig. 119), the 

 trumpet creeper, 

 and the cardinal 

 flower ; among 

 cultivated ones 

 are the scarlet 

 salvia, the gla- 

 diolus, and the 

 trumpet honey- 

 suckle. 1 



Snails are not so abundant in most parts of our own country 

 as to be important agents in pollinating flowers, but in some 

 parts of Europe they swarm in almost countless numbers on 

 the foliage and the flowers of many species of plants, and are 

 known to pollinate some flowers, particularly those of the 

 Arum family, related to our jack-in-the-pulpit and dragon- 

 root (Fig. 277). 



of Yucca, and on Pronuba and Prodoxus," by C. V. Riley ; also the same 

 reprinted as a pamphlet by the Missouri Botanical Garden, 1883. See also 

 the Thirteenth Annual Report of the Missouri Botanical Garden, 1902, paper 

 entitled < f The Yuccese," by William Trelease. 



1 Other flowers are the buckeye, horse-chestnut, canna, century plant, 

 cotton, evening primrose, milkweed (Asclepias), oleander, painted cup, 

 petunia, tobacco. 



FIG. 119. Wild balsam (Impatiens biflora) 

 The spurred flowers are much visited by humming birds 



