FLOWERS AND FRUITS 145 



which, although on the same plant, may be several feet 

 or yards away. Those who grow cucumbers know that 

 it is not actually necessary to go to the trouble of putting 

 pollen on the stigmas ; yet fruits, containing good seeds, 

 are regularly formed. There must be some way therefore 

 in which pollen naturally gets from one flower to another. 



Careful watching of a bed of cucumbers will often 

 show that the open flowers have various visitors. Bees 

 come to the flowers, go down to the bottom where the 

 honey is, and if it is a staminate flower, have in so doing 

 to push past the column in the middle which is covered 

 with pollen. As a result they come .out with a large 

 amount of pollen on them. Such a bee, if watched, will 

 probably be found to visit another cucumber flower. If 

 the second one is also a staminate flower it simply gets 

 more .pollen on itself. If, however, it goes to a pistillate 

 flower, that portion of itself which has become covered 

 with pollen, now rubs against the stigma, to which, being 

 sticky, some of the pollen adheres. Thus we see that 

 insects play a very important part in the carrying of 

 pollen from one flower to another. The importance of 

 this work of bees and other insects to flowers cannot be 

 overestimated, and it requires very little observation to 

 see how general it is. Besides bees, butterflies and 

 moths carry on the same work. An owner of an orchard 

 of apples or cherries, for example, who keeps bees, may 

 not only directly profit by the honey they yield, but also, 

 perhaps to a much greater extent, by the increased 

 amount of fruit he obtains from his trees, due to their 

 visits. 



It might at first be thought that whilst the visits of 



K 



