FORMATION OF SEED. 131 



This is the cause, as some say the reason, of the bright 

 colours, the fragrant perfume, and the sweet honey of 

 so many of our flowers. These things attract the 

 insects, and as they move about in the flower to 

 collect the nectar,* or gather the pollen for food, the 

 pollen sticks to their limbs and bodies, and is then 

 brought into contact with the stigmas of the pistils 

 as they move from flower to flower. You have a 

 familiar instance of this in our common primroses, 

 cowslips, and oxlips. In some the style is short, and 



the stigma about half way 

 down the tube of the co- 

 rolla, whilst the anthers are 

 at the top of it (Fig. 1 10 

 A) ; but in others the style 

 is long and the stigma at 

 the top of the corolla tube, 

 whilst the anthers are 

 placed half way down it 

 A (Fig. no, B). Suppose a 

 Fig. i io. FiowersofOxlip(/W;/abee enters one of the 



e/atior), cf Common Primrose kindg f flowers say the 

 (P. vulgarts). J 



short styled one (Fig. A), 



to get the honey at the bottom of the corolla tube ; 

 as soon as it goes to one of the long styled flowers 

 (Fig. B), that part of its body which touched the 

 anthers before, and is dusted with their pollen, will 

 now touch the stigma of the pistil and leave some of 



Nectar is immature honey, cf. nectary, in the Appendix. 



