J 73 ON THE NECTAKIE3 OP FLOWERS. 



hr]y the former. I shall therefore dedicate the greater part of 

 this letter to this subject : first, to the display of the various 

 functions cf the nectary 3 secondly, the importance of this part 

 of the i'cwer to botany in general ; thirdly, the description of 

 the many different sorts of nectaries botli concealed and open j 

 and fourthly, the curious mechanism displayed in their various 

 forimtion. 

 Honey sup- It ha^ been conceived, and frequently asserted, by our first 

 tended to in- pl^ysiologists, that the only purpose, or known use, of the honey 

 T*tte insects, so found in plants, was to tennpt the insect tribe to visit the 

 ini?ht convey ^o^^rs, that, while inserting their heads into the interior, they 

 pollen from might, by rubbing against the stamen, take up some of the 

 aaotherr^ '^ powder of the pollen, and convey it to the pistil in other 

 flowers ; and thus impregnate seeds, which, without their assist- 

 ance, might not be able to procure the powder necessary to their 

 completion. That nature has bestowed on the insect tribe the 

 curious knowledge necessary to seek the honey in a flower*, 

 and make their search thus gerviceable not only to themselves 

 but to botany, I have no doubt j but I am equally convinced, 

 that few, very few, of the indigenous plants of any country, 

 TI5I assistance (even of the dioecian class,) require such assistance; and thnt if 

 flowers were never removed from their native soil, they are all 

 sufficient to perform every part which nature hos assigned them, 

 in fructifying their own seeds. It is very little known, (because 

 it has never before been a matter of serious investigation,) how 

 Mohitsty of much motion indigenous plants possess. That they are scarcely 

 Dlauts'^^'^^ ever still, is an absolute truth j and that on a warm day we 

 need not seek in the plants of other countries that curious and 

 regular motion to be found in each field in our own. That the 

 pistil and stamen regularly bend to each other, so as to enable 



* Any person, who has seen an insect seek the honey in an antir- 

 rhinum, will be convinced, that this knowledge is necessary ; and that 

 without it the insect would fly to any other part of the flower, but the 

 oneat which it opens : whereas it settles at once on the round top, fixes 

 one foot on the opposite petal, which it pushes open, inserts the head 

 and shoulders within the flower, lengthens the proboscis, and draws up 

 the honey. All this is the work of a few seconds of time, and it is done 

 in so perfect a manner, so immediate and so direct, that nothing but a 

 thorough knowledge of the flov^cr could enable the irtsect to act thus 

 decidedly. 



the 



seldom neces- 

 sary, 



