blossom Hosts and Insect Guests 



HORSE-BA L M HONE V 



Only a few days since, while out on a drive, I 

 passed a luxuriant clump of the plant known as 

 '' horse-balm." I had known it all my life, and 

 twenty years previously had made a careful analyti- 

 cal drawing of the mere botanical specimen. What 

 could it say to me now in my more questioning 

 mood ? Its queer little yellow-fringed flowers hung 



Fig. 2. 



in profusion from their spreading terminal racemes. 

 I recalled their singular shape and the two out- 

 stretched stamens protruding from their gaping 

 corolla, and could distinctly see them as I sat in 

 the carriage. I had never chanced to read of this 

 flower in the literature of cross-fertilization, and 

 murmuring, half aloud, "What pretty mystery is 

 yours, my Collinsonia ? " prepared to investigate. 



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