"Blossom Hosts and Insect Guests 



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Others. The plants grow in fern-like tufts, with 

 scattered blossom heads of varied shades of yellow, 

 pink, or even carmine. 



I remember reading, a few years since, a remark 

 by a prominent botanical authority concerning this 

 flower, observing that its fertilization was a puzzle, 

 as insects were rarely to be found upon it, which 

 observation, taken together with what I had ob- 

 served of the strange form and disposition of the 

 blossoms, and the curiosity awakened by my reading, 

 possessed a peculiar significance for me. 



In the light of Darwin's and Mliller's pages, how 

 eagerly I now sought the haunt of my wood-betony, 

 and how readily, too, it disclosed the secret which 

 had heretofore escaped me as well as other earnest 

 though too hasty seekers ! A'isiting a certain wood 

 path, where the plants grew in profusion, I seated 

 myself among them, and observed carefully. It 

 was in the middle of May, and the flowers were in 

 their prime, and in such omnipresent profusion that 

 I felt assured some honey-seeking insect must soon 

 be tempted thither among the tens of thousands of 

 brimful nectaries. 



I had not long to wait before a well-known 

 ''drowsy hum" fell upon my ear, and a large 

 bumblebee alighted upon a flower-head close by. 



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