INTELLIGENCE OF FLOWERS 



habits that doubtless appeared to it too primitive. First of 

 all, the separation of the sexes is absolute: each has its par- 

 ticular flower. Next, the pollinium, or mass or packet of 

 pollen, no longer dips its stalk in a stoup full of gum, there 

 awaiting, a little inertly and, in any case, without initiative, 

 the happy accident that shall fix it to the insect's head. It 

 is bent back on a powerful spring, in a sort of cell. Nothing 

 attracts the insect specially in the direction of this cell. Nor 

 have the haughty Catasetidce reckoned, like the common 

 Orchid, on this or that movement of the visitor: a guided 

 and precise movement, if you wish, but nevertheless a con- 

 tingent movement. No, the insect no longer enters a flower 

 merely endowed with an admirable mechanism: she enters 

 an animated and literally sensitive flower. Hardly has she 

 landed in the magnificent outer court of copper-coloured silk 

 before long and nervous feelers, which she cannot avoid touch- 

 ing, carry the alarm all over the edifice. Forthwith the cell 

 is torn asunder in which the pollen-mass, divided into two 

 packets, is held captive on its bent pedicel, which is supported 

 on a large viscid disc. Abruptly released, the pedicel springs 

 back like a bow, dragging with it the two packets of pollen 

 and the viscid disc, which are projected outside. As the re- 



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