ANTHOPHTTA. 259 



is produced in great abundance, and the flowers are mostly 

 small, regular in form, simple in structure, uncolored, and 

 destitute of nectar (honey). The pollen-bearing flowers 

 are always in clusters which are exposed to the wind, as 

 in grasses at the top of the plant. 



490. A great many plants have insect-pollinated flowers; 

 these are, as a rule, large, colored, sweet-scented, and 

 provided with nectar-glands; the nectar acts as a bait, and 

 the showiness and scent as guides, to honey-loving insects, 

 which, by various contrivances in the flowers, are made to 

 come in contact with the anthers of one flower and the 

 stigmas of another, in the first dusting their bodies with 

 pollen, which in the second adheres to the stigmas. 



491. Large flowers are frequently solitary, but smaller 

 ones are, as a rule, massed in clusters which thus become 

 conspicuous. In the golden-rods we have a good illustra- 

 tion of an extreme case of this kind, the individual flowers 

 being very small and inconspicuous, while the flower- 

 clusters of hundreds of massed flowers may be seen for a 

 long distance. In sunflowers, in addition, the marginal 

 flowers in the cluster develop an especially showy perianth, 

 surrounding the whole with conspicuous rays. 



492. Many showy flowers have no nectar (honey) glands, 

 but in general some part of the flower secretes a sweet, 

 sugary fluid which is attractive to insects and some birds. 

 The nectar is always situated in the back part of the 

 flower, so that in securing it the insect is obliged to come 

 near to the pollen-sacs or stigma. 



493. In this connection the various irregularities of size 

 and form in the parts of the perianth, as well as of stamens 

 and pistils, have a meaning. Thus the perianth-leaves 

 niay grow together into a tube, in which case the nectar is 



