I02 THE STORY OF THE PLANTS. 



tube of a garden salvia, when the stamens will at 

 once bend down and embrace it in the way I have 

 mentioned. 



You must not suppose, however, that all flow- 

 ers are fertilised by bees and butterflies. Many 

 plants lay themselves out for quite different vis- 

 itors. Take for example our common English 

 figwort. This is a curious, lurid-looking, reddish- 

 brown blossom, shaped somewhat like a helmet, 

 and it is fertilised almost exclusively by wasps. 

 Its shape and size exactly adapt it for a wasp's 

 head; and it blooms at the time of year when 

 wasps are numerous. Now wasps, as you know, 

 are carnivorous and omnivorous creatures ; so the 

 figwort, to attract them, looks as meaty as it can, 

 and has an odour not unlike that of decaying 

 mutton. Certain tropical flowers again attract 

 carrion-flies, and these have big blossoms that 

 look like decomposing meat, and smell disgust- 

 ingly. A South African flower of this sort, the 

 Stapelia, is sometimes cultivated as a curiosity in 

 greenhouses. I have already remarked on the 

 white flowers which open at night, and attract the 

 moths of twilight ; while others again lay them- 

 selves out to be fertilised by midges, beetles, and 

 other insect riff-raff. Most of these have the 

 honey displayed on wide open discs, where it can 

 be sipped by insects with hardly any proboscis. 



In our latitudes it is only insects that so act 

 as fertilisers ; but in the tropics the work of fer- 

 tilisation is often performed by birds, such as 

 humming-birds, sun-birds, and brush-tongued 

 lories. Many of the most brilliant and beautiful 

 among the bell-shaped tropical flowers have been 

 specially developed to suit the tastes and habits 



