1919 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



117 



in the house of the Interpreter, who, 

 with eyes cast down, raked to him- 

 self sticks and straws, and would not 

 look up and behold the one who of- 

 fered him a celestial crown. 



The pea family, or Papilionaceae 

 (Gray makes this family a sub-family 

 of the pulse family or Leguminosae), 

 consists almost wholly of bee-flow- 

 ers, of which there are some 5,000 

 Among them are many excellent 

 honey-plants, as the clovers, alfalfas, 

 sweet clovers, vetches, false indigo, 

 sainfoin and locust. The butterfly- 

 shaped form is well shown by the 

 sweet peas, with its broad, showy 

 standard, wing petals and keel en- 

 closing the stamens and pistil. Both 

 the individual flowers and the flower- 

 clusters are highly attractive and 

 conspicuous ; the clovers and vetches 

 brighten large areas with their 

 bloom, and in Texas the blue lupine 

 carpets the ground for miles with its 

 blue blossoms. Of the 197 species in 

 the northern states, 39 are white, 33 

 yellow, 13 red, 88 blue-purple, and 24 

 blue. The predominance of blue and 

 blue-purple flowers is noteworthy. 

 When more than two species occur 

 in a genus it is seldom monochro- 

 matic, it usually contains flowers of 

 more than one color; of the clovers, 

 4 are white, 3 yellow, 4 red and 3 

 red-purple ; of the tick-trefoils, 2 are 

 white, 1 red and 19 blue-purple. The 

 flower fidelity of a bee is greatly 

 helped by these differences in color. 

 (Fig. 3.) 



This great family of bee-flowers is 

 in so many ways unique among plant 

 families that we are reluctant to 

 leave it. Why, when bee-flowers are 

 wholly absent or few in number in so 

 many families, does the.e occur this 

 vast assemblage of them in a natural 

 group? This is not a matter of 

 chance. The teleologist of a century 

 ago would have told us that they 

 were made so, and thus have dodged 

 the question and closed the door of 

 investigation. Today we seek- for 

 actual causes. The abundance of 

 these plants is partly due to their 

 great vegetative vigor, which is par- 

 tially explained by their strong root 

 system and to the presence of nitro- 



gen-fixing bacteria on the roots. An- 

 other cause is the great vitality of 

 the seeds which are longer lived 

 than those of any other plant family; 

 certain legume seeds retain their 

 viability after 150 to 250 years. Every- 

 one knows that beans will germinate 

 after years in storage. Fig. 4. 



The flowers of this family at some 

 time in the remote past were regular 

 in form, as they still are at times in 

 the common laburnum; but the but- 

 terfly-shaped corolla was very early 

 developed and was handed down to 

 the various genera as they succes- 

 sively appeared. Many species are 

 very efficiently pollinated by bees; 

 but others are not, and many flowers 

 show slight imperfections, as though 

 Nature, like Jove, had nodded at 

 times iii the ' never-ending work of 

 creation. The normal flowers of the 

 wild peanut are generally barren, 

 lucerne secretes nectar longer than 

 is needful, bees puncture some spe- 

 cies and rob others through crevices, 



Fig. 6- 



family 



Fig. 5. — Fringed Gentian. A bumblebee flo 



while the garden pea is wholly self- 

 fertilized. I know of but one bee in 

 the northern states able to depress 

 the keel of the sweet pea, and that is 

 the large leaf-cutting bee (Mega- 

 chile latimanus). There can be no 

 doubt that many of the species would 

 be better off if they received, like the 

 Compositae, a greater variety of 

 visitors. 



In the heath and blueberry families 

 there is another great group of bee- 

 flowers ; but unlike the members of 

 the pea family they are all shrubs or 

 small trees. (Fig. 10.) The Rododen- 

 drons and Azaleas are handsome 

 bumblebee flowers, but the rotate 

 blossoms of the mountain laurel in- 

 vite bees of all kinds. Other familiar 

 genera arc the checkerberry, fetter- 

 bush, Andromeda, trailing arbutus, 

 Spurwood, leather-leaf, bearberry, 

 and heather, several of which are in- 

 dispensable to bee culture. The flow- 

 ers are small, white or pink, urn- 

 shaped, often pendulous, and the pol- 

 len is sprinkled over the bees from 

 pores in the ends of the anthers. 



Fig. 7.— Skullcap. A two-lipped bee-flower of 

 the mint family. The long corolla tube points 

 to bumblebets as the most important pol- 

 linators 



Sour-wood, in the Appalachian re- 

 gion, is one of three leading honey- 

 plants. 



The heathers or heaths are not in- 

 digenous to America, although three 

 species occur locally in eastern New 

 England; but in northern and west- 

 ern Europe heather or ling (Calluna 

 vulgaris) covers vast areas of waste 

 or sterile lands called moors. When 

 it grows a yard tall, the fine ever- 

 green leaves, the purple stems, and 

 profusion of pink flowers present an 

 expanse of color long to be remem- 

 bered. Its uses among the peasants 

 are numberless, being employed for 

 brooms, brushes, baskets, fuel, brew- 

 ing, roofing, beds, dyeing and fodder. 

 Another beautiful heath, the purple 

 heath (Erica cinerea) is also common 

 ■ ni the lower moors of Great Britain. 

 Both secrete nectar plentifully and 

 furnish a generous surplus of amber- 

 colored honey, with an aromatic fla- 

 vor, but so viscous that it is difficult 

 to extract. In southwestern Africa 

 the heaths reach their maximum and 

 the 500 species are a prominent ele- 

 ment in the vegetation of that region, 

 reaching the height of 12 feet and be- 

 ing covered with white or pink blos- 

 soms for a large part of the year. 



Blue bumblebee flowers among the 

 gentians delight the traveler in the 

 Alps with their vivid masses of blue 

 coloring, and the blue bellflowers are 

 also partly bumblebee flowers. (Fig. 

 5). Another blue bee-flower is bor- 

 age, which has become so common 

 wild in Australia that it is listed as 



