154 DEATH-DEALING FLOWERS 



growth, are thickly covered with a clammy transparent 

 varnish, which in winter hardens into a protective 

 glaze. These glistening buds attract flying insects of 

 many sorts and sizes, the smaller ones being caught in 

 the sticky substance at once, the stronger ones, which 

 might kick themselves free, being entangled by the 

 chevaux-de-frise of bristles, and both alike perish. In 

 March, when this shrub displays its splendid scarlet 

 blossoms, the stickiness has disappeared, and the visits of 

 insects are welcomed for the purpose of cross-fertilising 

 the flowers. Thus the bearded rhododendron appears to 

 treat insects much as bearded man does other animals, 

 devouring some and using others for domestic purposes. 1 

 In all the instances above-mentioned, plants kill 

 insects for a specific purpose, beneficial to themselves ; 

 but there are cases where no such purpose is apparent 

 and the slaughter seems objectless. A correspondent 

 of the Garden newspaper lately called attention to the 

 destruction of hive bees by the African torch lilies, 

 commonly called redhot pokers. The honey of these 

 flowers has a stupefying effect upon the bees, hundreds 

 of which die, leaving their corpses in the flower-tubes. 

 Other bees, not caring to squeeze their substantial 

 persons into these narrow tubes, bite through the 

 flower near its base and get direct access to the honey 

 glands in that burglarious fashion. They too succumb 



1 I should explain that I have not actually detected any mechanism 

 enabling this rhododendron to derive nourishment from flies, and 

 some good botanists discourage the hypothesis. They tell me to look 

 at the glistening sticky buds of the horse chestnut. I do so, but 

 find no flies, for the horse-chestnut only exposes its buds in winter, 

 whereas the bearded rhododendron does so in summer. 



