FROM BLUE TO PURPLE FLOWERS 



^^ If blue is the favourite colour of bees, and if bees have so much to 

 do with the origin of flowers, how is it that there are so few blue ones ? 

 J believe the explanation to be that all blue flowers have descended from 

 ancestors in which the flowers were green; or, to speak more precisely, in 

 which the leaves surrounding the stamens and pistil were green; and 

 that they have passed through stages of white or yellow, and generally red, 

 before becoming blue'' — SlR JOHN LuBBOCK in '^ Ants, Bees, afid Wasps.'' 



