338 Field, Forest, and Wayside Flowers 
have portrayed this wayside weed on_ their 
escutcheons. 
The thistle is a member of the great composite 
family and its bloom is a mass of flowers set very 
close together. They are purple to please the bees, 
for purple and blue are the colors which those busy 
little insects love best, and they are rich in nectar. 
In most sorts the tube of each floret is so long 
and narrow that crawlers find it difficult to get in 
after the nectar, and winged insects with short pro- 
boscides cannot reach it either. Nature means to 
save it, if she can, for the butterflies and bees. 
But the little Canada thistle has flower-tubes 
shorter than those of other species, and hence its 
nectar can be drained by insects of many varieties. 
The honey rises into the throat of the flower, so 
as to be accessible even to insects with very short 
tongues, and hence it is visited by a large number 
of species. Miller records no fewer than eighty- 
eight. 
The mechanism of the florets is like that in the 
dandelion. The long anthers are united into a 
tube, which closely surrounds the pistil, and the 
pollen is shed into this tube. The pollen-grains 
are covered with little points, so that they cling 
together, and the whole mass of them is pushed 
