308 PAUCITY OF BLUE FLOWERS. 
the second place, the results may of course be due to 
the taste, quantity, or accessibility of the honey (all of 
which we know exercise a great influence), rather than 
by the colour of the flower. Still the table rather 
seemed to indicate that bees preferred red, white, and 
yellow, to blue. 
I may very likely be asked, if blue is the favourite 
colour of bees, and if bees have had so much to do 
with the origin of flowers, how is it that there are 
so few blue ones? I believe the explanation to be 
that all blue flowers have descended from ancestors 
in which the flowers were green; or, to speak more 
precisely, in which the leaves immediately surround- 
ing the stamens and pistil were green; and that they 
have passed through stages of white or yellow, and gene- 
rally red, before becoming blue. That all flowers were 
originally green and inconspicuous, as those of so many 
plants are still, has, I think, been shown by recent 
researches, especially those of Darwin, Miiller, and 
Hildebrand. 
But what are the considerations which seem to 
justify us in concluding that blue flowers were formerly 
yellow or white? Let us consider some of the orders 
in which blue flowers occur with others of different 
colours. 
For instance, in the Ranunculacee,! those with 
simple open flowers, such as the buttercups and Thalic- 
1T take most of the following facts from Miiller’s admirable 
work on Alpine Flowers. 
