COLOUR OF FLOWERS ITS INFLUENCE ON BEE LIFE. 293 



CHAPTER XXXVJI. 



THE COLOUR OF FLOWERS AND ITS INFLUENCE 

 ON BEE-LIFE. 



(Read before the Australasian Association for the Advancement 

 of Science, Tuesday, 11 January, 1898.) 



The subject that I have chosen for this paper may not, at 

 first sight, appear to be one so fraught with interest as those you 

 have already listened to. That it is in any way directly associated 

 with agriculture may appear somewhat doubtful. Indeed, the 

 title itself is not a very happy one. The matter that I intend to 

 weave into it, both in warp and woof, may not produce a fabric 

 wholly consistent with the colour of flowers and its influence on 

 bee-life. 



I am dealing somewhat with the essential organs of certain 

 plants, and the agents employed in their reproduction ; and I 

 think as I proceed I shall be able to show that bee-life and blossoms 

 are so closely associated the one with the other that to injuriously 

 interfere with either will at the same time militate against both. 

 Animal life — our life — cannot exist without the vegetable king- 

 dom, but some members of. the latter can live and propagate 

 themselves without the former ; whilst there are other forms of 

 vegetable life which would cease to exist if all animal organisms 

 were excluded from them — indeed, some forms of insect life are 

 an absolute necessity in the reproduction of plants. I know that 

 amongst phanerogamic plants there are those that are anemophilous 

 and other that are entomophalous. The former can continue to 

 multiply without insect aid, but with the latter insects are an 

 imperative necessity. Nearly all insects, more or less, aid in the 

 fertilising of the vegetable kingdom, but the ravages with the 

 foliage caused by some classes of insects far more than counter- 

 balance the good that they may do. 



Pollen is the fertilising and vitalising agent in reproducing and 

 perpetuating all classes of vegetables. It is produced in abun- 

 dance by all flowering plants, both by those of conspicuous and 

 also those of inconspicuous flowers or blossoms. As a rule incon- 

 spicuous flowers are anemophilous, and those of more gaudy tints 

 are sought after by insects. . It may not be universally understood 



