638 



Handbook of Nature-Study 



a story as has any of its family. Looking at it from the outside, we 

 should say that its nectar-wells lie too deep to be reached by any insect 

 except a moth or butterfly, or a humming bird; there is no platform for 

 a bee to alight upon, and the tube is too long to be fathomed by a bee's 

 tongue; but the bees are very good business folk; they adapt themselves 

 to flowers that are not adapted to them, and in autumn the glow of the 

 salvia attracts the eye scarcely more than the hum of the visiting bees 

 attracts the ear. 



The calyic of the salvia is as red as the corolla, and is somewhat fuzzy 

 while the corolla is smooth. The calyx is a three-lobed bulging tube 

 held stiff by rather strong veins; there is one large lobe above and two 

 small ones below the corolla. The corolla is a tube which is more than 

 twice the length of the calyx; it is prolonged above into a projecting 

 hood, which holds the anthers and the stigma; it has a short, cuplike 

 lower lip and two little turned-back, earlike lobes at the side. 



The special mechanism of the salvia is shown in the stamens; there are 

 two of these lying flat along the floor of the corolla-tube and grown fast to 

 it. Near the mouth of the tube, each of these lifts up at a broad angle to 

 the roof, and is more or less T-shaped , at the tip of one of the arms of the 

 T is an anther while the other arm is longer and slants down and inward to 

 the floor of the tube, as shown at 2 in the figure. 



The bee visiting the flower and entering the corolla-tube, pushes her 

 head against the inner arms of the stamens, lifting them, and in so doing 

 causes the anthers on the front arms of the T to lower and leave streaks of 

 pollen along her fuzzy sides. The stigma is at first concealed in the hood; 



but, when ripe, it pro- 

 jects and hangs down in 

 front of the opening of 

 the corolla-tube, whe.c 

 it may be brushed along 

 one side or the other by 

 the visiting insect, v/hich 

 has been dusted with 

 the pollen of some other 

 flower. The stigma- 

 lobes open in such a 

 manner that they do not 

 catch the pollen from 

 the insect backing out of 

 their own corolla. As the 

 nectar is at the base of 

 the corolla-tube, the 

 bees, in order to get it, 

 crawl in almost out of 

 sight. Late in the sea- 

 son they seem to "go 

 crazy" when gathering 

 this nectar; I have often 

 seen them searching the 

 bases of the corolla-tubes which have fallen to the ground, in order to ge* 

 what is left of the sweet treasure. 



Hec 



t<»»-y 



.Ovai-y 



Blossom of scarlet sage as seen from outside. 

 The same flower with side removed showing the 



arrangement of its parts. 

 A bee working the stamen's mechanism as she 



seeks the nectar. 



