POLLINATING AGENTS 



lit) 



carrion^flies and dung-flies take pleasure in odours 

 that are disgusting to us. Certain flies are common 

 everywhere in closets, and delight in disgusting sub-, 

 stances. These flies prefer to visit flowers with odours 

 or colours disgusting to us and to higher insects alike. 

 Such flowers have therefore been called nauseous 

 FLOWERS, as, for example, ghekul or ghet-kachu 



% 



<?. 



Fig. io6. — Ol t^A-morphophallus campanulatus) 

 sp, Spadix. spa, Spathe. 



(fig. 105), ol (fig. 106), which emit a strong foetid 

 odour during the night. Many flowers are scentless 

 or nearly so during the day, and exhale a very strong 

 odour during the night, as, for example, sheuli, mal- 

 lika, juin, rajani-gandha, hasna-hana. The nauseous 

 flowers mentioned above are also of this kind. 



Insects that have been enticed by colour or odour, 

 or both, are offered by the flowers pollen, and usually 

 also nectar or honey, as food ; and in return for this 

 hospitality the visitors, as a rule, effect their pollina- 

 tion. Secretion of nectar or honey takes place in 



