Wild-Flower Study 579 



this jewel hangs ; it is so delicate and so gracefully curved ; and just above 

 the twin sepals is a tiny green bract, elongate, and following the curve of 

 the stem as if it were just a last artistic touch ; and though the flowers 

 fall, this little bract remains to keep guard above the seed-pod. 



It would take a Yankee, very good at guessing, to make out the parts 

 of this flower, so strange are they in form. We had best begin by looking 

 at the blossom from the back side. The two little, greenish sepals are 

 lifted back like butterfly wings, and we may guess from their position that 

 there are two more sepals, making four in all. These latter are yellow; 

 one is notched at the tip and is lifted above the flower; the other is below 

 and is made into a wide-mouthed triangular sac, ending in a quirl at the 

 bottom, which, if we test it, we shall find is the nectary, very full of 

 sweetness. Now, if we look the flower in the face, perhaps we can find 

 the petals; there are two of them "holding arms" around the mouth of 

 the nectar-sac. And stifl: arms they are too, two on a side, for each petal 

 is two-lobed, the front lobe being very short and the posterior lobe 

 widening out below into a long frill, very convenient for the bee to cling 

 to, if she has learned the trick, when prospecting the nectar-sac behind 

 for its treasure. The way this treasure-sac swings backward from its 

 point of attachment above when the insect is probing it, must make the 

 lady bee feel that the joys of life are elusive. Meanwhile, what is the 

 knob projecting down above the entrance to the nectar-sac, as if it were a 

 chandelier in a vestibule ? If we look at it with a lens, we can see that it is 

 made up of five chubby anthers, two in front, one at each side and one 

 behind; their short, stout little filaments are crooked just right to bring 

 the anthers together like five closed fingers holding a fist full of pollen-dust, 

 just ready to sift it on the first one that chances to pass below. Thus it is 

 that Madame Bumblebee, who dearly loves the nectar from these flowers, 

 gets her back well dusted with the creamy-white pollen and does a great 

 business for the jewelweed in transferring it. But after the pollen is shed, 

 some day the bumblebee pushes up too hard against the anthers and they 

 break loose, all in a bunch, looking like a crooked legged table; and 

 there in their stead, thus left bare and ready for pollen, is the long green 

 pistil with its pointed stigma ready to rake the pollen out of the fur of any 

 bumblebee that calls. 



The red-gold jewelweed is quite different in shape from the pale 

 species. The sepal-sac is not nearly so flaring at the mouth, and the 

 nectar-spur is half as long as the sac and curves and curls under in a most 

 secretive fashion. The shape of the nectar-spur suggests that it was 

 meant for an insect with a long, flexible sucking tube that could curl 

 around and probe it to the bottom; and some butterflies do avail them- 

 selves of the contents of this bronze pitcher. Mr. Mathews mentions the 

 Papilio iroilus, and I have seen the yellow roadside butterfly partaking 

 of the nectar. Professor Robertson believes that the form of the nectar- 

 spur is especially adapted for the hummingbird. But I am sure that the 

 flowers which I have had under observation are the special partners of a 

 small species of bumblebee, which visits these flowers with avidity, 

 celerity, and certainty, plunging into the nectar-sac "like a shot," and out 

 again and in again so rapidly that the eye can hardly follow. One day, 

 one of them accommodatingly alighted on a leaf near me, while she 

 combed from her fur a creamy-white mass of pollen, which matched in 

 color the fuzz on her back, heaping it on her leg baskets. She seemed to 



