100 FIBST STUDIES IN PLANT LIFE 



we saw that the honey-tube is at the base of this 

 large sepal. Notice also that the swellings at the 

 base of the two small petals guide the eye at once to 

 the door of the honey-tube. The insect, therefore, 

 loses no time in finding the honey- store. It 

 cannot push its head into the honey-tube, but its 

 sucker is long enough to reach into the tube. In the 

 next chapter we shall see what the flower owes to 

 these honey- sucking insects. 



Questions and Exercises : — 



(1) Before eating a strawberry you remove a little ring of leaves 

 attached to the fruit. "What is this ? 



(2) Why are the unopened flower-buds in a, geranium-cluster 

 curved round towards the flower-stalk ? 



(3) What is the colour of the geranium flower wlien just 

 breaking through the calyx, and of the flower when fully opened ? 



(4) The calyx of a poppy falls off as soon as the flower opens. 

 Compare with this the calyx of geranium and mallow weed. 



(5) In a fuchsia the corolla is coloured. Can you see why the 

 calyx also is coloured ? 



(6) Is the calyx green or coloured in the nasturtium, violet, 

 larkspur, oleander, native fuchsia (correa) ? 



(7) In the geranium the calyx supports the corolla. How does 

 the calyx of the rose behave ? 



(8) In the geranium all the calyx remains after the flower 

 opens. Does all the calyx of a gumtree flower remain ? 



(9) In the geranium the corolla is made up of petals that can be 

 pulled out one by one. Explain the difference in honeysuckle, 

 primrose, Canterbury bell. 



(10) The calyx in the geranium has only one whorl (ring) of 

 sepals. How is it with the strawberry and the mallow weed ? 



(11) Some plants are hairy or sticky just below the flower to 

 keep off small insects. Try to find examples. 



Composition Exercise : Place before you all the parts of a 

 geranium flower that has been pulled apart, and tell how you 

 could put them together again so as to make a complete flower. 

 Begin with the stalklet of a single flower. Be careful to build 



