278 Flashlights on Nature 



Used, it produces no more bribes for the bee ; it 

 has got all it wants out of her, and it is certainly 

 not J^oing to tind her in food and pay her waj^es 

 for nothing. The consequence is, that a " sprung " 

 fiower becomes, as it were, an advertisement to the 

 bee of " Nothing to eat liere." If you watch a 

 bee paying her visits to a gorse-bush, you will lind 

 that she passes by the "sprung" flowers without 

 the slightest notice — seems, in fact, oblivious of 

 their existence ; but she fastens at once on each 

 virgin flower, and promptly — though, of course, 

 unconsciouslv— fertilises it. Such a device for 

 showing the visiting insects automaticilly which 

 flowers are fertilised and which are not is, natu- 

 rally, a great saving of time ; and plants which 

 develop such devices gain such an advantage 

 thereby as neither they nor the bees are slow to 

 appreciate. In some cases, as seen, as soon as 

 the blossom has begun to set its seeds, it changes 

 colour as a sign to the bees and butterflies that 

 it is no longer open to receive their visits ; in 

 others, the petals fall the moment fertilisation is 

 effected, and so the flower ceases to be at all 

 conspicuous. 



In the gorse-bush, the petals, however, do not 

 fall at all. They remain to enclose the young pod 

 as it swells and develops. The reason for this 

 divergence from the usual habit of plants is, I 

 think, because the gorse-bush llowers and ripens 

 its fruit in such very cold weather, that the young 

 and tender pods need all the cover they can get at 

 the moment when they begin to swell and to go 



