270 ADAPTATIONS AMONG ALPINE PLANTS 



making them the pollen distributors. So successful 

 was the move in this direction, that it quickly became 

 " fashionable " to adapt the flowers especially to 

 insect visitors. Since then many plants have become 

 more and more specialised, as regards the flowers, 

 in relation to insects, and all sorts of floral mechanisms 

 have been devised, some of which have been discussed 

 in the preceding chapters. 



We will now notice some further points in this 

 connection. The late Hermann Mtiller, our greatest 

 authority on the fertilisation of Alpine flowers, calcu- 

 lated that the proportion of insect- to wind-fertilised 

 plants in the Alps was as follows : 



Insect-fertilised species . 590 = 84 per cent. 

 Wind-fertilised species > 109 = 16 



Total species 699 100 



Another prominent worker in the same field, Loew, 

 found that the proportions in the plains and lowlands 

 of Central Europe is : 



Insect-fertilised species . 981 = 78 per cent. 

 Wind-fertilised species ^ 271 = 22 



Total species . 1252 J100 



Thus there is a relatively larger number of insect- 

 fertilised plants in the Alps than in the Lowlands, and 

 a smaller number of wind-fertilised plants. 



The chief insect-fertilisers in the Alps are butter- 

 flies, moths, humble-bees, and honey-bees. Certain 

 flies also cross-pollinate some flowers, such as the 

 Globe-flower (p. 207) and the Two-flowered Violet 



