84 Life and Love. 



whose anthers are ripe but whose pistil is trustingly 

 immature, — not desiring its own pollen, and not 

 fearing failure if it decline to receive it. Probing 

 deep for sweets the bee plentifully dusts her hairy 

 form with countless pollen grains and flies to 

 another flower of the same species for increase of 

 honey store, and there, it may be, comes upon a 

 blossom whose stigma is ready, but whose anthers 

 are not, and in again searching for sweets transfers 

 pollen grains to the ready pistil. 



As man)' insects visit each flower every day, and 

 as the insect generally goes from one flower to 

 another of the same kind when convenient, appar- 

 ently not liking to mix sweets, it follows that all 

 the flowers have ample opportunity to get pollen 

 from another plant when the time comes. 



Some flowers have such faith in their winged 

 friends that they have taken forms which make fer- 

 tilization, except by certain insects, impossible. 



Some orchids pi'cfcr moths as bearers of their 

 love messages, and we are told that only by the 

 eyes of the moth, as it thrusts its head into the 

 flower-cup, can the pollen, adhering in long adhe- 

 sive masses, be conveyed from these to neighbor- 

 ing orchid flowers. The red clover closes heart 

 and petals to all but the bumble-bee. She alone 

 can gather red-clover sweets and carry pollen to its 

 ovules. 



Fascinating as any romance is the story of the 

 loves of the flowers and their marvellous devices 



