INTELLIGENCE OF FLOWERS 



line at units is a chemist to boot and distils two sorts of gums: 

 one extremely adhesive, which hardens as soon as it touches 

 the air and glues the pollen-horns to the insect's head; the 

 other greatly diluted, for the work of the stigma. This latter 

 is just prehensile enough slightly to unfasten or loosen the 

 tenuous and elastic threads wherewith the grains of pollen are 

 tied. Some of these grains adhere to it, but the pollen-mass 

 is not destroyed ; and, when the insect visits other flowers, she 

 will continue her fertilizing labours almost indefinitely. 



Have I expounded the whole miracle? No; I have still 

 to call attention to many a neglected detail : among others, to 

 the movement of the little stoup, which, after its membrane 

 has been ruptured to unmask the viscid balls, immediately lifts 

 its lower rim in order to preserve in good condition, in the 

 sticky fluid, the packet of pollen which the insect may not have 

 carried off. We should also note the very curiously-combined 

 divergence of the pollen-stalks on the head of the insect, as 

 well as certain chemical precautions common to all plants; 

 for M. Gaston Bonnier's recent experiments would seem to 

 prove that every flower, in order to maintain its species intact, 

 secretes poisons that destroy or sterilize any foreign pollen. 

 This is more or less all that we see ; but here, as in all things, 



[71 ] 



