33 8 NATURE STUDIES. 



Thus, then, the flower of monkshood agrees funda- 

 mentally with the flower of the buttercup ; while, at 

 the same time, it has undergone some very singular 

 and suggestive modifications. In both there are five 

 sepals ; but in the buttercup all five are alike, and all 

 five are greenish ; whereas in the monkshood they 

 have acquired different shapes, exactly fitting them to 

 the bee's body, and they have become blue, because 

 blue is the favourite colour of bees. Ag'ain, in both 

 there are five petals ; but in the buttercup all five are 

 similar and yellow, and all five secrete a drop of 

 honey at the base; whereas in the monkshood two 

 of them have become long and narrow specialised 

 nectaries, while the other three, being no longer 

 needed, have grown obsolete or nearly so. Once more, 

 the stamens remain the same; but the carpels have 

 been immensely reduced in number, at the same time 

 that the complement of seeds in each has been greatly 

 increased by way of compensation. 



Well, how are wo to account for these peculiar 

 modifications ? Entirely by the action of the fertilising 

 bees. The secret of the monkshood depends, in the 

 first place, upon the fact that its flowers are clustered 

 into a spike, instead of growing in solitary isolation 

 at the end of the stem, as in the common buttercups. 

 Now Mr. Herbert Spencer has pointed out that solitary 

 terminal flowers are always radially symmetrical, and 

 never one-sided, because the conditions are the same 

 all round, and the visiting insects can light upon them 

 equally from every side. But flowers which grow 



