Wild Flowers as They Grow 



faces touch each other and press together, the pollen, 

 though ready to fall, cannot do so. 



The plan of the flower having been grasped, 

 watch a bee approaching. It flies straight on to 

 that part of the platform assigned to it, and the 

 projecting " beak " with the protruding stigma 

 rubs gently on its head. If there is anything in the 

 way of pollen to be rubbed off it, the stigma acquires 

 it. But the bee, unheeding, pushes sideways into 

 the long tube, for the honey is kept by the flower 

 down in the tube in a ridge round the ovary. As 

 it pushes in, though it does not actually touch the 

 poUen-boxes, it yet jars them so that, for the moment, 

 they spring apart, when promptly out fall their 

 contents, or at least part of them, and some of the 

 shower necessarily drops on to the insect's head. 

 In the meadow lousewort the anthers are fringed 

 with hairs so that the poUen shower cannot scatter, 

 but this arrangement seems to be absent in its 

 marsh brother, the Red Rattle. The honey secured, 

 the bee backs out and flies away. 



