132 



ACADEMIC BOTANY. 



chief actors in this pretty courtship, though many humbler 

 folk — the gnat, the ant, the fly — take part in it. 



302. Each flower has her own favorites : the Sage secretes honey to 

 attract the bee; the Pinks and Moming-Glories deck themselves in 

 gay colors to allure the butterfly ; the Evening Primrose unfolds and 

 shines the livelong night, exhaling her sweets for the humming 

 troubadour moth, who knows so well how to find the honey in that 

 deep corolla-tute with his Jong proboscis ; the Orchids assume all 

 forms and colore to entice visitor of every type. Entomophilous 

 flowers include nearly the whole of the higher phanerogams. Their 

 stigmas (Figs. 172, 187) are broader and more solid than those of the 

 anemophilas ; their pollen-grains (Fig. 4) are more viscid, and vari- 

 ously carved, grooved, and appendaged, that they may the more readily 

 cling to the insect which bears them. It is no unusual thing to see a 



bee carrying on his legs the pollinia 

 of the Orchis or Milkweed (Figs. 

 171, 172) like a pair of saddle-bags. 

 The Poppy secretes no honey ; it is 

 •visited for the sake of its pollen, 

 which makes Bee-bread ; its broad 

 sessile stigma (Fig. 197, E) affords a 

 fine foothold for operations. 



303. Sensitive Motion. — At the 

 time for pollination and fertilization, 

 the temperature of the stamens and 

 pistils rises, and they become highly 

 sensitive, sometimes exhibiting 

 spontaneous motion, as in the pistils 

 of the Mallow and the stamens of 

 the Barberiy. In the Dancing Or- 

 chids the whole flower engages in 

 this motion. The labellum is very 

 lightly poised, and furnished with 

 fascicles (bundles) of flne hairs 

 which catch the slightest breath of 

 wind. This, added to the increased 

 floral temperature, — and whj' not to 

 the sportive spirit which infects all other young lovers ? — ogives them 

 the grotesque contortions which are so curious and amusing. The 

 Artillery Plant (Pilea) gets its common name from the behavior of 

 the stamens. The flowers are diclinous ; the male has 4 stamens in a 

 4-parted , calyx which covers them. When ripe, the least moisture 

 causes the stamens to spring outward and elastically project their 

 pollen to the distance of a foot. This act is accompanied with repeated 

 audible explosions, and the pollen being very fine and smoke-like, the 

 process resembles mimic artillei'y. The same thing oecui's in the male 

 flowers of the Paper Mulberry (Broussoneiia), which is in the same 

 Order. The stamens of the Kue (Fig. 188), which bears monoclinous 

 flowers, lie outspread at right angles to the pistil, and ripen in suc- 

 cession. The flrst ripe stamen rises, bends over the pistil (against 

 which its fllament presses), opens its anthers, and sheds its pollen; it 



Fig. 188. — Eue (Ruta graveoleiu)^ with 

 iDsects. 



