38 BOTANICAL GAZETTE [JULY 
III. Competition of flowers for the visits of bees.— It is a ques 
tion to what extent groups of plants adapted to certain kinds of — 
bees should be regarded as in competition and to what extent — 
they should be regarded as mutually helpful. We will suppose — 
a case in which a plant whose flowers may be visited by beesis 
introduced into a region where all visitors must be acquired, 
If the region contains no flowers, there will be no bees to acquire, — 
On the other hand, it seems to me that the more nearly the 
flora retains its original characteristics the more bees there will — 
be and the more chances there will be of the new flower acquit 
ing bees as visitors. My view is that a patch of plants adapted 
to bees of certain kinds will be more abundantly visited, if it is : 
surrounded by plants depending on bees of the same kinds, than 
if the neighboring grounds are unoccupied. There will be more ~ 
of these bees in the neighborhood. In the table there are fifty- 
two species which get pollen from particular plants. As far as 
the data are correct, we take it for granted that the presence 
and abundance of these bees in a given locality depend on the | 
presence and abundance of the flowers from which they get theif _ 
pollen. One object in making the table is to show that the 
plants growing in the neighborhood of plants visited by oligo- 
tropic bees gain a certain number of bee visits. The table — 
shows that these plants gain 204 visits in this way. Itis expected, 
however, that some of the visits enumerated in the second an¢ 
third columns will have to be transferred to the first. Exclud | 
ing these columns, the neighboring unrelated plants gain 110 
visits from the es. 
for insects t 
pollen, altho 
