THE FLOWER AND THE BEE 



plantains are midway between wind-pollination and insect- 

 pollination, and some species display several hues and are 

 pleasantly scented. But as a whole wind-pollinated plants 

 have small, greenish flowers. 



Setting aside the great company of dull-colored, wind-polli- 

 nated flowers, there remain in northeastern America 2,972 

 species which are pollinated by insects or are self-pollinated. 

 Of this number 223 have green, 955 white, 790 yellow, 257 

 red, 422 purple, and 325 blue flowers. 



Green Flowers 



The primitive color of flowers was doubtless green. If the 

 theory of the poet Goethe that the flower is a metamorphosed 

 bud, or part of a branch of leaves, be admitted, this is self- 

 evident. Despite many attacks, this doctrine has never been 

 disproven, at least historically. In most flowers the calyx has 

 remained green, and in some genera, as Hepatica, its deriva- 

 tion from leaves is evident from inspection. It is not uncom- 

 mon in the buttercups, anemones, poppies, mustards, tuhps, 

 and many other genera for both the sepals and petals to re- 

 vert to green leaves, and I have before me a flower of Fuchsia 

 with three white petals, while the fourth is a green leaf. In 

 Cactus no line of demarcation can be drawn between bracts, 

 sepals, and petals, and all three are in the same spiral series. 

 Even assuming that foliage-leaves were derived from sterile 

 spore-bearing organs (sporophylls), there is every reason to be- 

 lieve that the sheathing bracts of the earliest flowers were 

 green. In the Black Hills a fossil "flower" of a cycad-like 

 plant (Cycadeoidea) has been found by Wieland, which is pro- 

 tected by an indefinite number of hairy, green, bract-like 

 leaves. (Fig. 104.) 



The green hue of both green leaves and flowers is produced 



224 



