64 MYSTERIES OF THE FLOWERS 



Quaker-lady, or Bluets — Houstonia ccerulea 

 April- J Illy 



These frail little flowers, which come early in the 

 spring and bide with us into the scorching days of 

 summer, are so minute as to appear at the first 

 glance to be all alike. But a closer inspection dis- 

 closes two kinds of these flowers. The plants grow 

 in scattered bunches, or tufts, and all the flowers 

 of one tuft will show protruding pistils at the open- 

 ings of their throats, while flowers of another bunch 

 will seem to have none. We must not, however, 

 jump to the conclusion that we have found pistillate 

 and staminate flowers. Carefully cutting oj^en a 

 number of the flowers, we find that long pistils and 

 short stamens grow in some flowers, while short 

 pistils and long stamens occur in others ; and, with 

 a microscope, the pollen from the short stamens is 

 seen to consist of globular grains much smaller than 

 those from the long stamens. 



Suppose a bee of the genus Halictus thrusts his 

 tongue into flow^ers of both kinds. In so doing, 

 he will accumulate pollen in two rings — the lower 

 being of the finer grains from short stamens, the 

 upper of the coarser from long stamens. But in 

 these visits, the tongue will brush against the pistils 

 too, and the coarser, upper pollen can reach only 

 the long stigmas, while the fine pollen will be car- 



