84 MYSTERIES OF THE FLOWERS 



tor with pollen. And besides all these, there are 

 countless inventions, impossible to co-ordinate. 

 They remind one of the model room of the Patent 

 Office. jNlultitudes of miniature working models 

 of machines are assembled: marvels of ingenuity 

 and fertility of invention. But our floral mechan- 

 isms have this advantage over the patented proto- 

 types- — that they, at least, help to keep the plants 

 alive, and to aid them in tlieir struggle for exist- 

 ence, which cannot be said in favour of all products 

 of human invention, for we know that many an 

 inventor has starved. 



Turtle-head — Chelone glabra 

 July-Sept, 



This flower never opens its mouth very wide, nor 

 does it show its pistil very conspicuously. This, as 

 seen in the sketch, is concealed in the roof of the 

 mouth, the stigma just above the opening, where it 

 is sure to touch the back of an entering bee. Back 

 of this the four stamens cluster into a sort of arbour 

 or bower, united by their furry anthers, which are 

 pressed close together, in pairs, face to face, thus 

 holding in the charge of pollen till the right mo- 

 ment arrives. 



Watch a burly bumblebee arrive with some pol- 

 len on his back. See him rub some of his charge 



